Corn dogs and cow manure and shampooed rabbits. Oh, my!

Life isn’t fair, but a fair is full of life.

The fair is a measure of summer — a place where a tattooed man was once someone you paid to see.

I am part of the great unwashed. I work at many fairs. I run a “Guess your height” booth. It’s a living. I used to run a “Guess your password” booth, but it was too challenging. This enterprise offers me an opportunity to associate with exhausted and sunburned fair-goers stumbling across the fairgrounds mumbling, “At least I don’t have to cook.”

An entire meal can be eaten on a stick at the fair. Such a repast provides the four major food groups — sugar, grease, fat and wood. You can’t get any fiber better than wood. For those who like to eat healthy, a turkey leg is food on a natural stick.

The fair is an eating contest. I eat a single corn dog each year. I visit a number of providers, getting estimates from each one, before I make my decision. My neighbor Crandall won the eating competition. He didn’t even know he was in one.

On a scalding hot afternoon, I longed for deep-fried ice cubes on a stick.

Once I got my fair legs, I watched the Falling Labendas, a family of mediocre tightrope artists.

I went broke on the midway trying to knock over three concrete blocks with a foam rubber baseball and attempting to toss a basketball into a pop bottle.

I looked at the parts piled high near the amusement rides. I avoided rides like the Whirl ‘N Puke. The worse the ride, the more popular it is. I almost went on a ride called The Drop. It had been called The Slide before it broke. I have learned that it’s important to eat a lot before getting on a ride so I won’t get the dry heaves.

I visited the Life Is Unfair Building. It was filled with the booths of a divorce attorney, an IRS auditor, a bankruptcy attorney, a funeral director, a proctologist, a plethora of politicians and a lottery official.

I went to the Antique Road Kill Show. People brought in their old flattened fauna to have it identified and valued.

My wife bought a gyro. It was good, but much too large for her appetite. She shared it with me. I had a couple of bites of the beef and lamb. That prevented me from being able to go into the cattle or sheep barns. I couldn’t face the critters with that sandwich on my breath.

July 2008

Here’s a look at July in the rearview mirror:

Saying, “Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit,” the first day of each month brings good luck.

The 2nd was I Forgot Day (I forgot about it), the 3rd Compliment Your Mirror Day, the 4th Sidewalk Egg Frying Day, the 9th National Hairball Awareness Day, the 13th Embrace Your Geekness Day, the 15th Cow Appreciation Day, the 17th was World Trivia Day (I wonder why?) and the 30th was Father-in-Law Day.

A burglar took the items he had stolen from a house in his neighborhood and placed them in his yard sale.

A man was accused of assaulting another with a frozen chicken.

Facing dire economic straits, the University of Tennessee cut back on academic programs while at the same time announcing a $200 million face-lift for the football stadium and pay raises of $350,000 and $300,000, respectively, for the football and men’s basketball coach.

Health insurance was canceled for a 19-year-old Florida woman with a serious brain disorder hours before she was scheduled for surgery.

British town councils distributed salt shakers with a third the usual number of holes to restaurants as part of a policy to make it difficult for diners to put too much salt onto their food.

Three men suspected of stealing from a Goodwill store ran out of gas before making it out of the parking lot.

A Greek researcher examined major surveys published between 1990 and 2003 that made claims for drug or medical treatments and found 32 percent of them were disproved or shown to be exaggerated.

High gas prices may be killing us, but fewer auto accidents are.

Safety groups that forced the replacement of grass and dirt on playgrounds with black rubber safety mats, which heat up enough on summer days to give children burns, proposed that canopies be built over playgrounds to block the sun.

A man attacked a convenience store clerk with a banana. That kind of thing usually happens in bunches.

One in 10 Britons has been injured by walking into something while using a cell phone.

Exxon Mobil made higher quarterly profits than any company in U.S. history with $11.7 billion — nearly $1,500 per second.

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Sunday and Wednesday.