PNE : 2010

This is a draft, one of many drafts on different topics I've found in my draft archives. This particular one is from 2010... Yowsa.

The PNE is the Pacific National Exhibition, which is a very Canadian and overly complicated way of saying 'State Fair'.

Owlet is four, if my math is right, which it rarely is. Owl Jr. is two, possibly/probably. There are  rides of various speeds and sizes and death-defyingness, sweet and salty and questionable treats that all have ceased being technical 'food' during the long slow cost-cutting and profit maximization that is industrial food production and regulatory slackening which began in the 80's and has gone as unabated sales of Atlas Shrugged to undergraduate commerce majors.

Owlet is a smaller fireball, and I'm not sure how she'll take rides. They trundle and whizz and bang and some go at speeds which used to fill me with excitement but now just have me worrying about the frequency of federally mandated safety checks for semi-permanent carnival attractions.

We go through the gates and there's the big behemoth, I think it's called The Coaster, which, well, I don't know how the creative team at the PNE believes slapping some capitals on a noun makes for an iconic coaster name; but it's big and wooden and is old enough to be grandfathered through various safety protocols and the people exiting the ride look mostly like they are happy to have not required inadequate CPR from grossly underpaid transients and students, so it's probably a good coaster.

All you can really hear is the thunder and rattle of the cars as they whip through various turns and falls. And Owlet is sceaming.

In delight.

It's equal parts screaming and laughing and laughing screaming.

She has this frozen smile on her face with her mouth half way open and it's kind of heart breaking to take her to the tamer rides that appropriate for her age and size. But the various treats formerly known as foodstuffs are so chocked with sugar and chemicals that make reading it make me feel like I'm reading a Breaking Bad script that any sort of disappointment is quickly quelled into a stupor or euphoric, hopefully temporary, chemical dependence.

Owl Jr. is 2, so he's more incoherently manic about trains. There is this train ride, of course, that I'm pretty sure he'd trade us for in a heartbeat if that was legal and he had the proper documentation. His screams come, of course, when we try to remove him at the end of the ride. Two years on and he's pretty much the same way but he can grudgingly take a spin on a ride that has somehow managed to go under the radar of Disney's copyright lawyers. Yes, I'm sure there are other perfectly well known flying elephants, but I'm drawing a blank at the moment.