I awoke from my most recent harrowing surgery to a bleaker version of our already-bleak state, one where it had just been announced that the Great State Fair of Oklahoma, the annual tradition of trash and treasures for the slack-jawed Okie in all of us, would not be happening in 2020 due to the dreaded Coronavirus.
On various dented davenports and divans across this obese land, the greasiest of tears filled the bloodshot eyes of a once-proud people with nothing better to do this September other than wait in the overflowing unemployment lines.
Last year was the first time I was actually able to enjoy the beloved fair, immersing myself in the decrepit squalor of pure Oklahomania that surrounds us all there, with mortal dangers on the midway that are far worse than any cataclysmic virus that’ll attack my precious body and its fluids, ranging from ill-stored corn-dog batter to Snow White’s razor-sharp ice-skate settling some unrelated business out in the parking lot.
Flaunting this newfound feeling of vim and vigor, I spent a full day there in 2019, exploring the ins and out and outs and ins, going to the places I shouldn’t and romancing the carnies you wouldn’t, making love to fresh squeezed lemonade and roughly manhandling a slice of pizza covered in baked scorpions, culminating in a ride through the world’s most unhaunted haunted house.