Las Vegas Weekly

September 16, 2010 · 3:59 PM

Turning 25 in Alaska leaves one in an unfair state of mind

By Justice

Late in the summer, I turned 25. The day before my birthday, since I had the day off, I went to the Alaska state fair with Black Bird and her family. I really got a chance to bond with her mom over fair food. “You’re my food soulmate,” she told me, as we walked down the fair path holding plates of fried oysters and creamy pastries topped with caramel and chocolate sauces that we washed down with diet colas.

Bird tends to be a picky eater. She won’t eat onions, mushrooms, pressed pork products, most salad dressings and many other things. I, on the other hand, will eat basically anything, at any degree of cookedness from any questionable source. I’m about as picky as a stray dog. I once ate half a taco I found in the back seat of my car. It was probably mine and it was probably only a few days old and probably just as enjoyable as the missing portion of it.

Bird’s mom and I stood by a booth and ate chocolate covered bacon on a stick while we waited for our deep fried zucchini to cool off. We forced Black Bird to try the bacon. She thought it was nasty. Her mother and I contemplated getting seconds.

Besides weird food (the main attraction!), at the fair there were also giant mutant vegetables and friendly livestock. Pumpkins so big that you could take a nap inside them. There were prize-winning turkeys the size of German Shepherds and magnificent fluffy chickens. I went through the petting zoo and got a dab of pig poo on my jacket. We all strolled along the fairgrounds until closing time.

The following day, my birthday, I went to work without Black Bird because she wasn’t feeling well. Pregnancy will suck the life out of you, I’m learning.

I barely drank at all on this trip. I have no sorrows that need to be drowned and not a whole lot of anxiety about work or money. Also, Black Bird isn’t drinking at all so I don’t have a good drinking buddy. The night of my birthday, however, I drank quite a lot in quite a very short period of time. I didn’t have my first drink until after midnight and we closed the bar a little after 2 a.m., and I managed to have a few minutes of memory loss. It was one of those nights when the majority of my dances were for women and ladies are always down for shots. So down the hatch we dumped our drinks.

Men are sad and lonely, while women come to strip clubs for fun. Honestly, female customers often tend to be the ones misbehaving the most.

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