The Ekka: Day/Night

August 14th

Terry is thoroughly enjoying making up the nachos for the eating contest.
She’s telling me for the 6th time that she simply cannot eat spicy food, while drowning the chips in chillies and Tabasco sauce.
The glee with which she yearns to see the contestants suffer at her hands is moderately disturbing.

This is the second time I watch her go through this procedure, repeating yesterday’s speech verbatim. “Wait until tomorrow. They won’t know what hit them! Ooo, I want to see their faces. Maybe I should pick up some extras peppers after work...”

She laughs. I shudder.

***

Terry has known Peter and Leslie for over 20 years. She makes a reference to them as Devotees.
“Devotees of what?”
“I dunno, some sort of Indian thing. The way you can tell is if they’re wearing beads.”

Terry would rather I join in with her as she criticizes and bitches about every person within our view; she’s told me as much.
And also how much fun it was working with one of the Devotees last weekend because that’s all the two of them did.
“She teaches yoga and is really into natural healing, but she just loves being nasty about people.”

I make a weak excuse of it being un-Canadian behavior, but Terry’s passed her judgement on me: Canadian or not, I am no fun.

***

Terry’s approach to customer service: everyone who asks for anything has the IQ of a Dagwood dog and should be spoken to with unparalleled levels of condescension.

[Her prowess is astounding, and that’s coming from someone who worked in an organic fair-trade café, where hipster blasé superiority is du rigeur. Just ask Questionable Content.]

I start counting down the hours shortly after 1:30pm. Not a good sign.

***

Gil comes to rescue me at 5pm; I rustled him up a free pass. I am a carny, after all.

We ride the chairlift that crosses the Show grounds. Gil’s all excited at first, swinging his legs and such, but then quickly gets very still and quiet. He tells me in a hushed tone that he’s a little bit afraid of heights.

We check out all the animals – I hug a llama around it’s neck – finishing in the animal nursery. I start off playing with a sweet kid (of the goat variety) who’s quite taken with chewing my hair. I sort of cradle her in my arms and she loves it.
And then, a while later, I figure, “Well, I'll just carry her around with me...”

“You have to put the goat down,” says one of the nursery workers brusquely.
“Oh, of course.”
I turn to Gil, “But she really likes me.”

As we're walking out, Gil asks if I was thinking of taking my goat with me.
“You were, weren't you?”
“Maybe.”

***

We're in the main arena, watching the events leading up to the fireworks. [There are fireworks every night. Have I mentioned that I love the Ekka?]

New South Wales vs Queensland in the wood chopping contest. It's a serious nail-bitter: NSW gets a knot early on, giving QLD a serious lead, but then NSW flies up from behind to take the win.
I've never been so excited about anything lumber-related in my entire life, with fairly good reason.

Next, the horse-jumping/stock car relay race. I know! Each team member goes through the jump course, leaps off the horse, runs to the car, which does a lap, then jumps out and runs back to tag the next person. Queensland is victorious.

Then: a car-drifting race, synchronized ute [pick-up truck] driving (enough to make Busby Berkeley weep!), mad motocross jumps, astounding horse tricks, a tent pegging contest (tent-peg-removal-on-horseback-via-jousting-lance, which is a real sport here), and an ancient fire truck from I believe 1911 outfitted with a jet engine.

By the time the fireworks start, my voice is nearly gone.
And as is always the case with me and fireworks, each one is my absolute favorite.