July 30, 2014 Adam

The Tale of the Fair Tail

Blog, Tails

Once upon a time, I was at the county fair.

Yes, I went to the county fair. Quit laughing. I’m not entirely sure why I went myself, because it’s not really my scene…there are lots of country folk there who resemble the animals they show for 4-H.

Oh! I remember why I went now; the firefighter ice cream. Yes, that’s why. One of the fire departments has a food booth thing with homemade ice cream. For $2 they put this vanilla homemade ice cream in a cup and fill it so that it’s about 12 inches taller than the cup. For two dollars. $2. Only $2. It’s a Sam’s Club kind of crazy good deal.

So, that’s why I was there.

I went with some friends and after I had gotten my dairy-made-diabetes-in-a-cup, we sat down at the pizza shack restaurant booth place.

We sat down, and I started shoveling this disgusting amount of ice cream in my face, when suddenly, this kid walked up to me. I had absolutely no idea who this small person was. I just knew that he was 7ish, blonde, and had some very large eyes.

We just stared at each other for a while at first. I thought he might ask me where I got my ice cream from, or if I knew where his parents were, or maybe tell me that I was in his seat. But the words that flowed out of his mouth utterly shocked me. I was downright and entirely blindsided.

He said, “Hey mister, if you could have a tail, what kind of tail would you have?”

I blinked a few times and tried to comprehend what he just said. My mind was flooded with thoughts; including, but not limited to: “Where are the parents?” “Is he a Convoy kid that I happened to forget?” “He’s wearing sports attire. Rugby maybe? No, football; that’s the one with the oblong ball that they throw at the yellow fork things. Well, maybe it’s hockey? No, that doesn’t make sense. He’s not wearing skates and doesn’t have a Canadian accent, and it’s like 70 degrees outside.” “He really just asked me that question? That question? This is like a dream come true! Maybe he reads my blog…Can 7-year-olds read? Yes they can, I think. My writing style is somewhat easy to read…Maybe he does. I should ask.”

But he really asked it! I was flabbergasted and ecstatic. The only way to make that moment better was if I had ice cream.

Wait. I did have ice cream! Holy dairy cow, Batman!

As soon as he asked the question and I realized what he had said, I started looking around to see if I knew which big grownup person he belonged to. I didn’t see anyone.

I responded (a cautious question in my voice) with, “Oh, well hello there! Um…I would have a ring-tailed lemur tail. What kind of tail would you have?”

He looked a little confused and said he didn’t know what kind of tail he would have.

I started down my “everyone would have a tail if they could” spiel and then he ended up with saying something like “I still don’t know” and left abruptly.

I stared at my friends with a look of shock and amusement, thinking that maybe they had orchestrated this whole thing. They didn’t.

But then, Crossfit Summer from the gym (before the crossfit people moved into a different building) starts walked toward me with that small blonde person.

Both of them sat down to my right, and Summer said something like, “That was awesome! You’re welcome. Oh, this is Bryce, he’s my spawn.” She really introduced him as her spawn (I’m not making that part up), and going by his reaction to it, I would say it’s not the first time she introduced him that way. It was great and very dramatic.

Then I had my light bulb moment. I knew she had a kid, and I had seen pictures of him before, but he was much taller in person and I didn’t really recognize him. Partly because I was too distracted by being on the receiving end of the tail question, and partly because I was still shoving ice cream in my face.

It was definitely the highlight of my night, possibly week.

So, they sat down and we started talking and doing the “happy communicating with food around” thing. Summer got up and came back with pizza, breadsticks, and an outrageous amount of sliced watermelon for her and the small person.

I asked Bryce if he was going to put the watermelon on the pizza to help make it healthier; he said no and gave me a funny look, and me being the über-mature 23-almost-24-year-old that I am, I gave him a funny look as well.

Summer broke the amusing standoff by asking Bryce what his answer to the tail question was, which resulted in him giving her a funny look as well. Then we were all in this facetious Mexican standoff of sorts.

Summer said that she would have a Kola bear tail, “stumpy and fluffy,” is how she described it, if I’m not mistaken. I wasn’t entirely sure how to react to stumpy and fluffy, because that also describes a lot of other things (bunnies, Ewoks, gerbils, etc.). That is also a different tail than what she told me a few months ago, when she wanted a ring-tailed lemur tail, too.

Actually, I think she was only copying me because I’m kind of her hero.

I say that with as much sarcastic humility as I can muster. #JustKidding #ButSeriouslyThough #JustKidding #NoButSeriously #JustSeriouslyKidding #I’mKiddingSeriously #SunsOutGunsOut #HamiltonTrained

Moving on…

So I had finally met Summer’s small person (who was much taller in real life than what I had been led to believe), he asked me the tail question, and I had so much awesome ice cream “that brings all the diabetics to the yard.” I think that’s how that “milkshake” song went…

End result: It was a very productive and entertaining night for Adam.

I will find out what kind of tail he would have…eventually.

I also found out that 1) He was not playing rugby, and 2) That being Canadian is apparently not a requirement to play hockey.