Fuzzy-Furries and Pickles-On-A-Stick

Seventeen years ago today, I married my soul mate. Seventeen years ago last week, we met for the very first time. [I’ll let that sink in a minute. Go ahead. Take your time.] Gather round, Children and I'll tell you the tale....Mr. Bee flew to Maine to meet me in person after we had been pen pals for a year and a half. This was back in the days before email even! We actually used paper, pens, stamps and the Postal System! He arrived on Friday the 13th, 1990 (see it’s not always an unlucky day!), proposed on Sunday the 15th and we were married the following Friday, the 20th. We don’t believe in sittin’ around and mullin' things over, me and Mr. Bee don’t! My parents and friends were convinced he was an ax murderer and that they would never hear tell of me again when I moved to Wisconsin on Labor Day weekend 1990. But it’s all worked out alright. We review the situation every July and decide whether or not to renew our contract for another year. Some years negotiations are stiffer than others! This year was a breeze. We’re in this thing until at least July 20, 2008.

We are going to the Dane County Fair to celebrate. It was semi-cheap entertainment that happened around our anniversary date back in the beginning when we didn’t have much money and has now become a tradition; hokey as it is. I get to hug and coo at all of the animals, yes even the piggies and chickens, I am truly pathetic when it comes to fuzzy-furries, and Mr. Bee gets his customary pickle-on-a-stick.

I don’t remember pickle-on-a-stick being a carnival delicacy back East but it’s big out here in The Flatlands. As far an I’m concerned, the lowly pickle-on-a-stick doesn’t have a lot going for it. Number one, it’s a vegetable for God’s sake! With all of the other choices; funnel cakes, cotton candy, corn dogs, and deep fried Snickers bars, there is something inherently wrong in celebrating the gluttonous excess that is ‘The Fair’ with a glorified cucumber-even if it is on a stick. There is a suspicious lack of sugar, chocolate and greasy, deep fried goodness in a pickle-on-a-stick. There are some foods that just aren't 'fun' even if they are on a stick. The pickle is one of them. Sweet potatoes and liver also come to mind as stick-unfriendly, un-fun foods.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like it's good for you. The sodium in one of those babies will raise your blood pressure and kill you faster than back-to-back rides on The Zipper (notorious deathtrap-ride-of-all rides at the carnival), but I just don’t get it. It really trips Mr. Bee’s trigger though…so...so be it I guess. He probably doesn’t understand my preoccupation with talking to each and every goat, cow and sheep either….and yet the whole thing has lasted seventeen years. Go Figure.