*Boring Sister, State Fairs & MSCW Germs

I always was an old woman in a little girl's body. The oldest of three and the most unadventurous...while "golden girl middle child Sister", was perfecting her flips off the diving board, I was under a pool umbrella, trying to make sure the potholders I was looming were straight and color coordinated. While personable youngest child Brother was falling through the neighbor's ceiling into their downstairs den (he was walking on the attic rafters), I was making sure that my closet was neat and tidy. Adventure was NOT my middle name. The A stood for Anne.

When the girls my age "sneaked" out at night and ran amok in the neighborhood, I sat at my window and pleaded with them to go home before they were kidnapped. (Never "the life of the party" was I!) Once I must confess I made a prank phone call to Mrs. Brister (the mother of the boy that all the mothers wanted their daughter to marry) and asked her if her refrigerator was running and when she replied, "Why, yes it is." I giggled and told her that she better go catch it. There you have it, probably the most outlandish thing in my young life....boooo ring! I carried around guilt from that call for years.

So now we come to the time of the year that I dreaded the most growing up and still do...State Fair time. In the olden days, we Grenadians didn't come to Jackson very often. The interstate wasn't completed southward only north to Memphis, so the State Fair was only a distant thing to us. But each year we did have a county fair and small fairs with rides and such. This was the height of my adventuresome nature.

Once my friend Martha Ray went with our family to the fair and while we were riding the "Spider" she became so nauseated she threw up all over me and everyone else that was downwind of us. That pretty much did it for me but what happened next put the nail in the coffin for the fair forever.

After the "throwing up" incident, we were walking behind some men who were chewing tobacco. They'd walk and spit and walk and spit. (It just makes me queasy thinking about it even after all these years.) I began following that trail and was doing my best to avoid stepping in it. I became obsessed with NOT stepping where ANYTHING like that spit might be.. and that narrowed my path considerably. I became internally hysterical with the thought of having all those germs on my shoes. When I got home, I refused to come into the house with those shoes on...and to this day...I do NOT patronize the State Fair or any other kind of such event because I can't afford new shoes every time I attend.

I know, I know...you are labeling me obsessive compulsive....but if you ever took Microbiology at MSCW (now MUW) like I did, then you'd know what we as humans are up against in the battle against germs. I think that course did more to make young women into obsessive house cleaners than any single course in the curriculum. So until this "Fair Mania" runs its course, I'll just be content to watch the proceedings on TV and try to spread the message about why I don't attend the festivities. Ya'll have a good weekend....ewwwww.

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