you give me just a taste so I want more

Excluding frogs, Fred Flintstone and Fantasy Island, I love many things - both nouns and verbs - that start with the letter F. At this time of year, when fair season kicks in, my favorite F fantasies fixate on funnel cake.

Greasy, hot, twisted (greasy), powder-sugar coated (greasy), funnel cake. Freakin' heaven on a plate, baby! I indulge once a year at our state fair, and last Friday was to be my day to feast!

Through years of research, I've found it best if you don't just shoot your load immediately and dive into a funnel cake all willy-nilly. Nope. The way I see it, and the way I do it, is as follows:

Earn it.

Make it's doughy goodness yours only after you've endured the heartbreak and the hardship that comes in a relationship with something so saddled with calories and decadence, because you just now your heart's going to break the moment your lips touch the powdered sugar.

That was how I was able to step up to the state fair vendor with an open heart and my pride cast aside. Maybe drooling a little in anticipation. Just a little. I'm not a funnel cake slut, after all. I'm a respectable junk food eater. To earn this treat, I did the following:

• Gave 14 hours of hardcore family togetherness with my mom, sister, two nieces, my two sons and the nearly 97,000 other diehards who wanted to be around us.
• Basked in the sweet aroma that 97,000 people produce when Mother Nature decides to go all bad ass and kick the temps into the high 90s and a heat index in the low 100s. Note to the dude in the FFA shirt wafting down the grandstand - just because you work with livestock doesn't mean you have to smell like you just rolled around in the pasture, my friend.
• Cringed at the distinct possibility my four year old niece would drop a treasure in the back of my mini when, 30 minutes outside the fairground gates, in a crunch of cars and nowhere to go, she started wailing with the desperate need to use the bathroom. For not one, but two reasons, if you catch my drift.
• Stared in wonder at a pair of finely pierced man boobs. God bless you, Grandpa, and your A cups for having the guts to try and carry that look off.
• Ascertained that the mohawk has taken the reigns over mullets as the go to hairstyle in the midwest. Finally! The young and the old were totally rocking that look. By mid-afternoon, I was messing with my kids' heads, trying to figure out how they'd look with the killer stripe.
• Stood aghast as I watched a film of the calving process. I found it, honestly, terrifying. The look on my face, the one kind of like this, clearly indicates I'm a suburbs kinda gurl. Cows are for gettin' in my belly after being cut into delicious steaks and hamburgers. I don't need to know how they come to be.
• However, my sons apparently do, for I found myself busting out "the talk" with them while we rested on a park bench outside the agriculture building. Seeing nature in all its infinite glory will apparently make a young man's fancy turn to science and biology. "So, babies come out of your stomach?" my oldest asked "Well, um, not necessarily." "So, where do they come out of?" my youngest asked. "Oh, hmm. Well, sometimes they come out of where you potty," I replied, giving them as much technical detail as feasibly possible in my quest to always tell them the truth, and "potty" seems like a pretty scientific word to me. Alas, my attempt at teaching was met with uproarious laughter. "Say that again!" my youngest begged. Stupid me, I did. Five or six times. Nothing like a child's laughter to make your heart sing and remember why you birth those calves in the first place.
• Made upwards of 590 stops for temporary tattoos to cover every visible body part four children could find. Shockingly, though, in comparison? Only five bathroom breaks.
• Spent 30 minutes wading through an ocean of people to make it from the middle of the fairgrounds to the other side to hear an ABBA tribute band. Hell yeah, my babies! If you change your mind, I'm the first in line! Do not mock me. Also, do not mock the tribute band members, committed to their shiny jumpsuits and dutch boy hair. Well, ok, I may have, just a bit, when I turned to my sister and said, "Do you think there is pride in their voices when someone asks them 'What do you do for a living?' and they are forced to admit they sing "Chiqitita" three shows daily at state fairs across the country?" Sue me. It was 13 hours into the fair for me by then.

And at the 13th hour mark, I got my funnel cake! Sweet success! Greasy fingers, powdery sugar goodness at my grip...

Until four kids looked at me like I just delivered them the keys to the chocolate factory. When I told them to bugger off, they then proceeded to maul me, zombie style, until before I knew it, they had eaten the entire funnel cake and I got none! Not one bite!

That, of course, prompted me to mutter one of those F words I sometimes dig.

Yep. Fernando!

Damn if I don't also love a good ABBA tribute band...