So Long At The Fair Part 2: Homey

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Sept. 28, 2009

Sandra Tsing Loh gets cheap admission to the L.A. County Fair, but isn't able to avoid the amusement park section.

This is Sandra Tsing Loh with The Loh Life. Today's topic: So Long At The Fair. Part Two: Homey.

As tickets to Disneyland are like $80 now? My friend Dawn took some out of town friends. Admission for 11, throw in food, Seven Dwarves plush toys, maybe a Cinderella musical wall clock – and it's a small, small mortgage. No – as my mom friend Kathy and I were feeling broke, we decided to take her three kids and my two kids instead to the clearly much more affordable L.A. County Fair, in Pomona.

Opening day tickets? One dollar.

"But park in the blue zone, the green zone, or the red zone," Kathy warned. "Not the yellow zone. Because then you will enter through the fairway and the arcade games and the carnival rides and–"

It was too late. I had already blithely piloted my overheating Volvo wagon into the lemoniest heart of the yellow zone.

And suffice it to say, the amusement park section of the L.A. County Fair is not a good fit if you don't like heights, if you loathe games of chance, and if you are afraid of carnies. Thank God for the $15 margaritas, which stilled my trembling hand enough to swipe my Visa to buy $50 worth of tickets. Which my girls tore through in half an hour!

Apparently, they enjoy trying to knock over a stack of concrete milk bottles with a puffy Nerf ball at $3 a toss. Yes, there's nothing quite like seeing your children eagerly hurling their college funds at a laughing carny. I just hope proceeds from the fair go to the L.A. County... High School for the Arts, or something!

And while my tiny girls with their skinny arms are winning nothing, who's cleaning up, in arcade land? Your 300-pound tattooed white Harley bikers, your sunglassed Latino gang members. Those gang members, oh do they have the hand/eye coordination! To fire those little water pistols at those little ping pong balls!

Yes, it is our homies who float blissfully down the fairway, delicately nibbling kettle corn and crunching chocolate covered bacon as they lovingly embrace their Kermit the Frogs and giant stuffed pandas, while contemplating an exhibit of Budweiser Clydesdale horses – each imprisoned in his own tiny beer-marketing cage!

I couldn't help feeling that the L.A. County Fair was much like Burning Man but harder to get to and more expensive. The next day, for $2, I took the girls to "U Wash Car" and we had just as good a time. "I wish we didn't have to go to school and could just do this!" exclaimed my daughter Suzy, foaming my windshield. "At this rate you will," I replied.

But of course they also want to go back to the fair. And if you want to come with us, let me give you some parking advice...

Anna
1 month, 2 weeks ago

Completely offensive! While you write well, your assumption that 300 pound white men are bikers and Latinos with sunglasses are gangsters is extremely shortsighted.

doreet
1 month, 2 weeks ago

My favorite part of the county fair is all the “home economic” stuff- homemade pies and cake, quilts and let’s not forget the table setting competitions!!!! Of course it is way better at the start of the fair, before all the bug's get to the food.

Joyce Dillon
1 month, 1 week ago

This story just killed me... I thought it was so funny. My older son had gone to surf camp and the hubbie and I really wanted to just crash at home. But it was the last day of the OC fair and we got coupons for like 2 dollars. So I felt that we should be good parents and take the little brother. He was fairly quiet there but enjoyed the treats and one arcade game. Then when Joey (11) wrote about his day at the fair for school, he wrote about the food and animals. His big scene was about shooting beebies at the red star and I was so glad I had listened to that little nagging mom voice.

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