Day 12: The End

           The lawns of the Minnesota State Fair Grounds were tired, trodden brown mats that only resembled grass upon close inspection. I remembered the green suburban landscapes I had observed at my interview in July. Was the wilting greenery some sort of metaphor for how I was feeling?

          Nah.

          I dropped my bike off at the corral and cut across to the sidewalk on my way to start my shift. I stopped at the Ocean Spray promo booth and grabbed a cup of juice.

          "Last day huh? How does that feel?" I asked.

          "It feels great!"

           Yes, I have to agree. It did feel good. Over the past two weeks, I'd had a great time chatting with other Minnesotans, visiting exhibit booths and becoming the world's best hot dog artissst EVER. I wasn't tired, and I certainly had not seen everything there was to see at the fair. But, my dreams were starting to involve boogeyman ketchup bottles and supernatural relish with nefarious tendencies. I felt perfectly content leaving a few things for 2012.

           There were some things I had to do before I left this year:

Take a picture of my peeps at Chicago Dogs!!

Ride the oldest ride at the Minnesota State Fair: Ye Old Mill

...and when one of the employees at Ye Old Mill asked if Elf wanted to sit in the "captain's seat" I had to say yes. I am so proud at this moment. If only my camera worked better in dim light conditions!

Possibly the best addition to the State Fair and the coolest new exhibit I saw this year, The Giant Sing Along!

So long State Fair! Until next year!

          

           

Day 10 and 11: Workers' Heaven?

           Labor Day weekend at the fair is busy. Seriously. Busy. Crossing the street is a five minute affair of slowly tiptoeing past stroller wagons and wading through cliques of high school students. Getting into a bathroom and eating during my lunch break? Not happening. 
           With all these folks in attendance, Chicago Dogs has been hopping, churning out dogs and beers like airplanes emit carbon dioxide. Being a quality Chicago Dog making artissst, I happily stayed on past my shift for the evening rush. The plus side of this decision was that I enjoyed the privilege of throwing relish, cleaning mustard fiascoes and dancing to karaoke for more than ten solid hours. Honestly, I had a grand time sprinkling onions and doing the 'Chicago Dog making dance' (I must suggest to my boss that we choreograph this to the music). But after the long shift, I was wiped. Instead of stumbling home to write half-thought out post--eerily reminiscent of late Sunday night college essays--I made the executive decision to enjoy the fair while I still could and worry about the posts later.

TTFN: Ta Ta For Now
    

Day 9: Hot Dogs in the Dark

           Today would have been a busy day at Chicago Dogs. By 11 am, the lunch rush hour had already begun. I raced to and fro, building Chicago Dog masterpieces, filling sodas, and refilling condiments from the back-up fridge. As scheduled, karaoke began at noon. Halfway through a painfully bad rendition of some unrequited country love song, the power went out. 

           The crowd applauded as the music stopped. We groaned as our heat source, cold source, registers and soda machines all went out of commission.

          "Cold beer!" my boss yelled at the crowd, "We still have cold beer here!"

          The occasional ship-wrecked soul wandered over, but between the dim light in the garden that obscured our menu and the slow payment time it took to generate change manually, we lost a lot of customers. Fortunately, the fluorescent lights flashed back on ten minutes later when the power returned. Unfortunately, the power failed three more times throughout the afternoon. Finally, at 2:40 pm, we received word that the power would be out for an entire hour from 3-4pm as they attempted to fix the electrical problem.

           "Fill up your topping trays to the brim, avoid opening the fridge doors and let's hope for the best," my boss told us.

          I guess hoping for the best did work. The repairs took no more than twenty minutes. At that point, the power returned, and business resumed as usual. Do you think this is a legitimate experience to bring up when asked at my next job interview, "Can you describe a time when you faced a challenge in the workplace and overcame it?" 

Elf and a baby pig

           From darkness I strove for the enlightenment of The Miracle of Birth building where two friends and I wove through small children to look at recently born farm animals. Overhead, previously recorded video of people wrestling mucus filled sacs out of mama cows played cheerfully. Ah, the glory of life! The babies themselves, clean and cute looking, now lay in the center ring, soaking up a shower of admiration, "Ooooh, honey look at the baby cow! So adorable!"

Day 8: The Tide Turns

Elf Elf stands alone...

 

Not alone. Chicago Dog makers!!

Eight days are behind us with just the last weekend dash to the finish left.

TO THE FAIR!

Day 7: Taste buds, Let's Tango

         Without a doubt, one of the central attractions of the Minnesota State Fair is all the artery clogging goodness. Six days in and all I had eaten were the Chicago Dogs, some cookies and a glass of milk. Time to give those taste buds a workout.

          I prepared for the day by packing a small lunch. As I was munching on my carrot sticks and plum during my break, a thin woman sat down next to me on the bench.

           "Wow, that's a lot of self-control to only eat a plum at the fair!" she commented.

          If only she knew what I was going to be consuming in the next few hours...

Elf was pretty into the beer...

          My partner in crime was my father. We met up after my shift and got down to business. A Chicago Dog--of course--and a cold beer were our first conquests. 

           One of the most important strategic components for eating at the fair is to absolutely forget that there exists a thing such as "daily caloric intake." The other, is to take lots of breaks. On break number one, I met up with a friend whose personal mission was currently to find an elusive wine slushy. She had heard about the slushy from a friend, but nobody we asked had any idea what we were talking about. Finally, we found it, at the wine bar in the back of the French Creperie. Verdict: One sip is tasty and the presentation is beautiful in a deep scarlet, but too sweet for me.

Break number two. Watching the dog show!

          Every day, people walk past Chicago Dogs carrying boats of steaming cheese curds. I have been jonesing for one every day of the fair. After meeting back up with my dad, the cheese curd stand was our next objective. Here's the thing about cheese curds: they look better than they are. Eating them is somewhat akin to putting cement blocks in your stomach. We had about three each and realized there was no way we were going to finish the rest. I called in reinforcements. Fortunately, another friend, an avid cheese curd eater, was also at the fair. He helped us with the cheese curds, and also gave us a hand with the corn fritters and fried green tomatoes we bought next. 

Sunflower honey ice-cream

          I had spent most of my shift at work daydreaming about the various foods I was going to eat this evening and asking my coworkers for advice on what to try. My cashier told me that her favorite sweet food at the fair was the honey and sunflower ice-cream. As I consider ice-cream to be its own food group, and dearly love honey, I was all over this idea. It did not disappoint, sweet enough to taste bad for you, but not over powering, and with a hint of sunflower that gave it a distinct twist of earthiness. 

         A small order of fries later, and I was craving something healthy. I ran up to the Horticulture Building to buy an apple. Unfortunately, they are closing. A young employee stood in the doorway.

          "Please," I pleaded with him, "Could you just grab me an apple?"

          He looked around uncomfortably, "I'm not supposed to."

          I must have this apple, "It's for writing research!"

          "I'm not supposed to," he just repeated.

As usual, Sweet Martha piles on the cookies waaay over the top!

          I sighed, "No worries man, I understand." 

          What choice did we have? We decided to try the new fried apple pie instead. And then later, after taking a break to listen to Nick Sterling, we hit up Sweet Martha's Cookies on our way home. These types of things happen when you try to eat healthy at the state fair!   

Day 6: Where am I again?

         Just as I was about to get off work today, a coworker told me about a cool band that was playing on a side stage this evening. He is a musician, so he knows what he's talking about. I decided I should check it out, so I asked him where it was.

          "By the grocery store," he said. 

           "The grocery store?" I repeated, certain I had never heard of such a thing, "I didn't even know there was one of those here."

          "OK," he said and tried another landmark, "It's by the moose."

          "The moose?" I had no idea what he was talking about. I felt like a complete and utter State Fair Failure. Where had I been for the past week? I began to wonder if my entire life's fair experience had been based on a shamefully incomplete picture lacking even the most iconic geographical knowledge.

          "Yeah, and the fish."

           "The fish...?" suddenly it clicked, "...oh right! The DNR exhibit!"

          My coworker shrugged, "Probably."

          See self, I reassured myself, you are not a State Fair Idiot.

          "By the Milk Stand?" I confirmed.

          "I have no idea," he said. Ha! What kind of a fairgoer doesn't know the Milk Stand?

           Here's when I realized the obvious: The State Fair is so huge and has so much going on, that two people can spend years going to the fair and both develop two completely differing images of what the fair is.  Different strokes for different folks, as they say. I might describe something in relation to a stand of all-you-can-drink milk for a buck. Someone else might describe the same thing in relation to a grocery store, or a giant moose. The other obvious thing: Even more important than listening to this band, I definitely had to go find it just to go find this grocer:

I found the store. Here it is in all its glory! Like my coworker told me, it was in close proximity to a giant moose and as I suspected, just behind the Milk Stand. Why I never noticed either this store or a giant moose before, I cannot say.

Yup, inside is a fully legit grocery store, complete with jars of PB for $3.79 and $1.00 Red Delicious Apples. Note: local MN awesome apples available for less from the Horticultural Building. Elf here sits in the tooth pics like a good dentist, reliving some Christmas film memories.

 

Day 5: Trouble in Paradise

          "Good morning," the man on the sleek red road bike said to me this morning, "Look at me pass you at approximately double your current speed with my spandex clad legs of steel and bright neon yellow wind resistant commuting jersey."

         Rather, this is what I interpreted in his cheerful morning greeting. I stuck my tongue out at him as he and his water-proof panniers vanished quickly into the distance.

          "How many times," I asked the empty road, "Do I have to ride this stinking route before I am no longer the SLOWEST bike out here?"

          No response.

          Yet, now that I know the route down pat, I have been biking a teensy-tiny bit faster every day, mostly to get the whole ordeal over with. Not that I still don't revel in the ultimate coolness of being a bike commuter, but...(shh...don't tell anybody!)...at certain points in my ride today I found myself a little, well, bored? Just in the more mundane parts of the route, like where the scenery consists of nothing but concrete and dusty looking warehouses.

Then, at work...

         It was the fifth day at Chicago Dogs and I was thirty minutes into my shift.

         Dude, I am bored already, I thought.

         "Dude," I told my cashier, "I am bored already!"

          During the first hour of work I made a grand total of two hotdogs. It picked up a bit around lunch, but not much.  The minutes dragged by. Potential customers fled my welcoming grin. My face drooped, my smile faded, my dancing steps lagged into a half-hearted shuffle, the voice in my head that usually sings a bright high-pitched theme song that goes, "I am making hotdogs, I am making HOTdogs, I am making HOTDOGS!" kicked down revolutions per minute to a slowmo, "I...am...not....mak...ing...any....hot......dooogggsss." A serious case of the yawns spread around my side of the stand.

          Not only was this the slowest day of the fair yet, but the register I was working was even slower than the others.

         "It is the suckiest one here," according to my cashier, mostly because, "Customers can't see the beer!" The taps at this particular resister are placed to the side, hidden behind a tree of chip bags, instead of right in front next to the till as they are at the other stations.

         I am pretty sure more people came up to me to ask where they could find other food stalls than people jonesing for hotdogs. Then, when people did request dogs, well, I am just so efficient at making them now that it simply is NO LONGER A CHALLENGE! I have such problems.

         I suffer from the "got the routine, mid-gig blues." I named this condition in college when I would find myself unreasonably crabby at the end of every October. It's far enough into the semester that it's not new anymore, but not far enough to see the end in sight. I am not alone!

         "Yeah it's been slow here too," the bike attendant who checked my ticket told me as I left, "Sure makes the hours go by slowly."

         That's what I am talking about! My bike attendant friend and I, we all like to busy here.

I came to this Conclusion: We need more people to come to the State Fair with their bikes and purchase hotdogs at Chicago Dogs!      

Fully determined to make the most out of my time at the fair after work, even if I was feeling bored and uninspired, I decided to take the Minnesota State Fair History Walking Tour and showcase it in an Elf picture album.        

Elf attempts to become a Child of Local Minnesota Corn in the Agriculture Horticulture Building.

This guy, J.V. Bailey, whom I knew nothing of previously, apparently had his own house on the fair grounds from 1916-2004 and was instrumental in all things green related to the fair.

My mascot next to the Fair mascot!

Hey Santa! How do you like them cookies?

I'm on a boat! In the 4-H building at a kid's exhibit about wind powered boats!

I check out the art in the Fine Arts Center. Elf admits he shall never be as skilled as these figurines :(

A new sleigh design for Santa from Machinery Hill?

One year I will have to ride the Sky Glider...

Old fashioned stuff and things at Heritage Square.

Elf screams like a girl at the Midway!

No explanation needed...

      

Day 4: They Don't Call it "The Great Minnesota Get-Together" for Nothing!

          As just about anyone who has been to the fair can attest, meeting up with people at the State Fair can be a bit like playing a game of "Where's Waldo." With soo many people shuffling across the streets and sidewalks, picking one individual out of the crowd can be quite a challenge. It's always exciting to spot someone you know among the sea of fairgoers. I know I am constantly on the lookout for familiar faces--so much so that every now and then, I notice a face that vaguely resembles someone from the distant past, like a classmate I had in junior high, or a lady that rang up my groceries in my hometown. I then squint my eyes, as though this will help me decide if I know the person or not, and stare at them until they notice. He or she then does this funny eye-dance where they sort of avert their own eyes, but also meet mine at the same time, most likely wondering, "Why is this crazy girl I have never seen before staring at me?"

Friend Day at the Fair!

          But, TODAY when I saw people I thought I recognized, I was actually correct! A few came up to witness my Chicago Dog making artissst skills at the stand (another great day making the prettiest hotdogs you have every seen), some sent me a text to tell me they were around (which I only received when I was on break time), and a couple I just plain ran into on the street. 

          When I woke up this morning, I did have some big plans today to research the livestock buildings, but catching up with friends was much more fun. After all, it is the Great Minnesota Get-Together and I have even admitted that THE PEOPLE are most definitely my favorite part of the fair. Livestock will have to wait.

P.S. Hugs to Friends who made my day awesome today!

Day 3: Accidental Tomatoes, Awesome Teenagers

          "ChicanoTOMS!" one of the cashiers I was making hotdogs for yelled at me over the constant din of conversation and karaoke in The Gardens building. I had no idea what he was talking about.
          Um, is that on the menu? I wondered.
           "Chicago Dog with no tomatoes!" one of the floaters translated as he skirted around me with two chili-cheese dogs in hand.
          Clearly.
          I went to work, putting together the dog in lightning speed. Tray out, bun open, dog in, mustard along sides, spread the relish, etc...sprinkle tomatoes--wait a minute--
         BLAST IT! He said NO tomatoes.
         No need to panic. I swept my hand along the tomato contaminated side of the bun, removing all the offending vegetables and then reapplied the rest of the ingredients.
          Bam. Best looking Chicago Dog sans tomatoes ever. Sadly, I had to throw the accidental tomatoes.  
         
          Business was hopping today at the State Fair. I fixed one order after another all afternoon with barely a pause. That is just the way I like it. Although, it is harder to dance to the music as I work when I am so busy running for more ingredients.

         The theme today was 4-H. All the times I have been to the fair, I have never actually been in the 4-H building. No time like the present, I figured. I have one word for what I saw in this space:

Impressive

          I marveled at professional looking sewing designs, intricate sciency projects, awesome photographs and cool technological inventions. Kids made these? I felt like asking. While I was checking out the collection of projects, the Arts-In production started. The show, titled It's a Jungle Out There, is a musical production that 4-H members from around the state designed and produced together at the beginning of August.The songs and dancing were great, and I particularly enjoyed the message of the play:

Life is a jungle, but you have got to get out in it!

Kids these days!

Day 2: Biting Off More than I Can Chew

          The Minnesota State Fair prints a brochure title Deals, Drawings & Giveaways. I worked the night shift on Day 2 because I traded with a coworker who wanted the night off. I figured I would take advantage of the afternoon hours and make a challenge out of signing-up for as many freebies as possible. Now, this brochure lists over sixty-five drawings and forty giveaways. Being realistic, I had taken the time to read through the list and select only the top twenty-five prizes I was actually interested in winning. I gave myself three hours to complete my mission.
          After one hour, I realized I had grossly underestimated the time and energy necessary for this scheme. I had only signed up to win three prizes. And the last two were in the same building.
In my defense: The pure navigation skills involved in locating the sign-up sheets and then weaving through the hordes of other fairgoers is truly shocking. Combined with the sun and heat, I am not too proud to say that I simply was not up to the challenge.
And the other thing: I could not bring myself to just sign-up and walk away without at least saying, "Hello!" and, "How are you," and often, "Tell me about your organization!" I spent ten minutes chatting with a fellow at the Sierra Club about mining in northern Minnesota, five minutes learning about the Optimist Club, and another five minutes saying talking to a home improvement worker about more efficient windows. A few minutes here and a few minutes there later, all my time had disappeared!
The shameful results: I signed-up for a measly nine drawings and collected only three giveaways.

But then...Chicago Dog Making Artisst Time!

          The night shift is like the day shift, except better.
           One of my coworkers observed, "The day shift feels like work, but the night shift just feels like fun."

          The atmosphere is completely different, the karaoke is more entertaining, the tips are existent, and occasionally, a cool breeze actually finds its way into the building. Plus, the night crew can put in extra hours when they stay for closing and clean-up. Of course, I stayed as late as I possibly could, which was 11:45 pm. The last bus left at 12:00 pm.

No problem.

I said good-bye, headed outside, and briskly walked directly to the...bike corral?

Ooops. This type of thing happens when I go on autopilot.

          I checked the time. 11:55! Yikes! I booked it down to more gates to the bus stands, flashing promotional bling bouncing around my neck, hair flying, face looking half mad and sending out telepathic vibes like crazy that said, "Dear bus, please, please, please, do not leave early. I do not, do not, do not have any other way to get home since I left my bike in the garage so I wouldn't have to ride home in the dark!" 
          Someone was listening. As I approached the bus lot, my route was still waiting. Breathless, I hopped on and plopped myself down in one of the last remaining seats. A fellow passenger attempted to start a sing-along. It was 12:00 am. The driver pulled out at 12:02. Crisis averted!






 

Day 1: Getting Oriented

          I hopped off my bike in front of the bike corral on the south east corner of the State Fair grounds. 

          An elderly gentleman, wearing the blue State Fair Employee t-shirt gave me a collection ticket and asked me where I had biked from this morning.

          "Brooklyn Park," I told him proudly.
          "That's a long way!" he exclaimed.

           I assented, saying nonchalantly, "Maybe, I don't know, sixteen miles or something." I shrug as if to say, No big deal.

           Inside I am thinking, That's right. I 'Kick Gas.' 

           "Well, it's a great way to start the day," we both agreed. And it certainly was. After a leisurely ride along the Mississippi River, I was in full spirits, ready to make the world's best hotdog and get down to the business of squeezing every moment possible out of the fair experience.

           After depositing my bike, I walked inside the gates, picked up an informational pamphlet or two and sat down at a bench. 

           What should I do today? I asked myself and began to peruse my options. There was the Pet Center, showing Siberian Huskys, Local Foods Cooking Demonstrations in the Eco Experience, free samples from the Moo Sample Station, The Johnson Family Band playing at the DNR stage. There were the LOADS of freebies, 'sign-up to win' locations and daily deals. There were tours, art exhibits and 4-H Demonstrations. In short, I realized that there were a PLETHORA of potential activities at the State Fair. Even though I had twelve days, I would still not be able to check out everything. Which meant, I would have to...make decisions.

I panicked. The nerd in me cried out with this quote: "There's...too many of them!"

A translation for the non-nerds = me at this moment: overwhelmed

      
          I decided to go to work. This was a good decision, since my shift was about to start. 

Me whilst working at Chicago Dogs: having a rollicking good time 

Come visit Elf and me at Chicago Dogs!

          Not only was it no problem for me to figure out how to put the hotdogs together, I positively reveled in it. I took personal pride in how the onions lay against the coney sauce on the coney dogs, how the sport peppers stood aside the cucumbers.

          When one customer complimented, "Now, that is a work of art!"  

          I wanted to reply, "You better believe it baby!"

          I wanted to make more hotdogs. As fairgoers passed by I tried to send out telepathic vibes that said, Come buy Chicago dogs! It will change your life!

  
OK...

...so I didn't claim, even telepathically, that a Chicago dog would change anybody's life. But I did genuinely want more people to come and ask for hotdogs. I was having a fun time putting them together, and when I was busy making them, the minutes just flew by.

          Before I knew it, my shift was finished.

          Now what?

          I decided, instead of spending my first day trying to create and follow some sort of detailed plan for how I was going to spend my entire twelve days at the fair, I would just wander around and orient myself. So, for the next hour and a half, I walked around, chatting with a few other fairgoers about an arctic tent on display, discussing the merits of Minnesota made Chicago Dogs with a dog-whisperer from Chicago (he should know, I mean, really), and signing up to win a year's worth of free groceries in the Dairy Barn just because a nice girl working for the Midwest Dairy Industry Association told me I should friend them on Facebook. Also, I would not refuse a year's worth of free groceries. Or any free groceries, to be perfectly honest.

          As I was exploring, I came up with a plan. Sort of. It is more like a general guideline that I shall use to shape the next eleven days.

          And I will tell you about it. 

          Tomorrow.

          Unless I change my mind.

      
      



Training Day

        I felt so cool flashing my ID at the security officer at the Underwood gate as I drove into the fair grounds last night for a training meeting at Chicago Dogs. It was like I was part of some backstage crew for the world's largest theater production. It still felt unnatural driving my car through those familiar streets, but I nodded savvily at a crew attaching a banner to a restaurant and waved knowingly at some women taking a rest at a picnic table. 

         With the addition of the mobile food stands, the grounds were starting to feel more like the place I knew from fair time. In the minutes before my interview, I rambled between Rootbeer barrels, cotton candy trailers, and hotdog and slushy stands.  In the past few weeks, traveling vendor booths had converged along the fair streets, filling them out in a recognizable maze of heart clogging goodies. Adding to the mishmash, was a king sized collection of white plastic waste bins and sturdy benches strewn across the lawn at ten foot intervals. The sound of machines humming wafted to my ears, as they tested their limbs, gearing up for the BIG EVENT. At a humid 85 degrees, the sweltering sunlit patches of the road certainly felt fair like. But what was still missing were the SMELLS. I guess I will just have to wait for those deep fryers to fire up Thursday morning for the aromatic performance.
          The actual training was completely painless. I watched studiously as my boss demonstrated how to make the Chicago Dog. Here are the standard ingredients:

• the bun
• the dog
• fancy mustard
• green (and I mean really green, like psychedelic green) relish
• onions
• tomatoes
• cucumber
• peppers
• celery salt
• pickle

       This is a LOT of stuff to put on a hotdog. But once I saw a few get made, and my boss pointed out this super duper handy cheat sheet taped to the back of the prep table, I thought, I have totally got this.         

 I tried my hand at this Chicago Dog making artistic venture. 

Elf next to one of my first Chicago Dog creations.

What do you think?

SShh! I know some of the ingredients are missing. It was a special order. I have to be prepared for this kind of thing, in case we have a guest who does not like pickles, or suffers from cultural withdrawal without ketchup on his hotdog.

                        

          Well on my way to becoming best Chicago Dog maker artisst EVER!

              Then I looked over my shoulder at the menu board. There are seven other types of sandwiches, my boss hadn't even mentioned. I glanced at the prep table. No cheat sheets. Plus, there are FIFTEEN different toppings, one the name of which, I cannot even pronounce. 
        I might be in for a rough first day, I thought.
        "Don't worry," my boss assured us newbies, "This training might seem totally inadequate--"
       Was I just thinking that?
        "--but once you make a few of the sandwiches on Thursday you'll see that it really works well."
        All the veterans agreed, "It's easy. There will be more cheat sheets. You can follow them."
        "OK," I said, nodding, "No problem. I am totally stoked." As long as there are cheat sheets!



 

Richelf and Elf

It has been decreed that I need a mascot for this blog. After a long arduous day spent sifting through dusty antique store shelves, fighting off rambunctious children at specialty toy shops, I finally found him hiding among old HappyMeal toys at a store on Superior Street in Duluth, Minnesota.

                                                           We are Richelf and Elf!

**yes, I know he starred in the famous Christmas film. We chatted about it. Elf is trying to branch out and avoid getting typecasted into the Holiday scene. He assures me that he loves the fair as much as I do.

Landing the Job

Back track to Thursday, August 11

          

The owner of Chicago Dogs called a week later to offer me a job. I took her up on the offer. Having a position is, after all, essential to THE PLAN. Let me run through the check list

Apply: Check

Get an Interview: Check

Land a job: CHECK

I am going to be the GREATEST Chicago dog making artist (pronounced the French way artissst) ever! 

Next dilemma: How am I going to get from my dad's place to the fair every day?

I have this crazy idea: I could bike to the fair grounds, saving money and perhaps losing some of the extra ‘living at home where the food is free and easy’ pounds I have gained since moving back into my mother’s basement two months ago. Google maps tells me it is only 16 miles. And with Google maps I’ll never get lost…

Foolproof!

I will be one of those cool kids who arrives to work with a bike helmet!

Once I get to the fair, I’ll work the morning shift, getting off at 4 pm every day.  That means I have time to meet up with people, hang out, investigate fair secrets, hunt down the Gopher for photo opps, stand in line for a yard stick, and revel in the general joy that is an evening at the fair.  Alternatively, if I’m tired from, well, the actual job and stuff, I could go home and wash the grease off and have my own life.  But I shan't let a job get in the way of my fair experience. No way. I am certain it will only add to the excitement. 

The interview among ghost town cheesecurds

Back track to Wednesday, July 13

           

The Employment Center called and offered me an interview with Chicago Dogs, a pretty self-explanatory vender that sells Chicago style hotdogs. Aptly named.

On Wednesday, July 13^th, I again made the drive from Duluth to the Fair Grounds for the interview. I left early because I wanted to leave with plenty of time for potential traffic and navigational error situations. When I arrived, I still had a solid hour to kill. After picking up an interview assignment sheet from the State Fair Employment office, I got back in my car and drove through Dan Patch Avenue entrance. I followed the map to Chicago Dogs.  Driving a car down those streets felt downright eerie. My foot was perpetually on the breaks as though I were about to get pulled over, or drive over hordes of people that I imagined might magically appear as they do at the end of August. It was disconcerting. 

The cool thing was, without all the people, I started to see details I had never noticed during fair time. For example, did you know that the fair grounds’ roads actually have names and street signs? Personally, I’ve always navigated the fair in relation to the food booths.

“Oh yes, the giant slide…that’s close to the corn isn’t it?”

Or

“The Education Building? Just after the Kiwanis Milk Shakes.”

Also, did you know that the fair grounds are full of greenery? The streets are lined with shady ash and maple trees like suburban neighborhoods. Lawns in front of buildings are carpeted with grass and interspersed with lush gardens of flowers and other landscaping plants.

I parked my car close to the Grand Stand and walked around the blocks. Sultry anticipation hung in the air, mixing with a stale heaviness of ghost town fried cheese curds. I spotted one or two groups of summer employees, landscaping or driving maintenance vehicles. A few other people, mostly young kids in their teens, seemed to be doing the same thing I was, clutching green interview assignment slips and checking maps.

This is when I noticed one other thing about fair grounds in the off season: things are a LOT closer together than I had realized. I think it is because the huge multitudes one has to cross to get anywhere during the fair makes the distances between any two destinations seem much larger than it actually is.

There is probably an algorithm for this that goes something like:

x number of people in a crowd X actual distance RAISED TO THE POWER OF x level of mini-donut cravings = perceived distance OVER time

Similarly, the grounds actually have a LOT of bathrooms! Without a tedious line sneaking out and around it, a women’s bathroom is incredibly easy to spot on most blocks. I used one. You better believe I reveled in the glory of that lineless break.

With a few minutes left before my interview time, I sat down at a picnic table outside of Chicago Dogs to take a few notes. I actually tried to summon up some nervousness for the interview but I couldn't do it.

This is what was running through my head: If my liberal arts degree and ability as a friendly Minnesota Nice native cannot get me this job, I might as well give up now, and take up vagabonding full time. It would be far more fun, and less stressful.

 

So I wasn’t nervous. Instead, I was actually having trouble taking the whole ordeal seriously, getting giggly even, like I tend to do before I go out for the evening or when I am hanging out with people I’ve only recently met.

I kept asking myself, Am I doing this for real?

Then I seriously thought about the answer. I had just spent thirty dollars on gas to get to an interview for a twelve day job that only pays SEVEN-FIFTY an hour. During the fair, I planned to stay at my dad’s house in Brooklyn Park, but I’d still have to pay something to get to St. Paul every day.

That could add up.

And while we’re at it, it isn’t free to get into the fair. That’s got to be included in my employment agreement. Right?

I started to wonder.

Oh my, was my final thought as I walked into the interview, I might just LOSE money on this venture!