Freebies

Listening to: Craig David (yes, yes)
Currently Reading: Forever Odd – Dean Koontz

To start off, I have a question for you. Read it out loud if it helps.

Courtesy of one of posters at the Royal Adelaide Show that yours truly attended for the first time in ever. Yes, yes.

The Show is the equivalent of the local carnival that comes to town which everybody swears they will not go to this time but inevitably find themselves at, again and again, paying exorbitant prices to eat candy floss, get repeatedly hit in the face by huge soft toys hoisted over men’s shoulders and failing miserably at one of those stall games that you are certain you can win this year but which invariably guarantees the stall keepers laughing at your expense – once again.

 But - my oh so lovely friends grudgingly decided to pay the entrance fee in order to accompany the very naive moi and go through the motions of dizzily staring at sky high carnival rides, critically stare at but secretly contemplate buying showbags, endure the weird man at the bus who kept turning around to stare at us (or rather Keeks) straight in the face while we were talking (I felt like yelling hoi man,you do know we can see you through the magical power of sight ), eat tasteless hotdogs and have an all round banging (but freezing) good time.

We even managed to catch the last bit of the motorshow stunts. The testosterone levels at the Oval was so tangible you could have cut it just by waving a pair of panties through the air. You could literally sense that every man in that stadium wanted to be that guy on the motorcycle, twirling around dangerously while his bike flew aimlessly across a MAC truck. Yes, testosterone doesn’t always induce intelligence but it’s useful I suppose.

Then came the fireworks. Which was really amazing – I can’t remember the last time I watched fireworks properly, like I always catch glimpses of the things, but never one from start to finish, and as far as fireworks go, these ones were pretty.

And of course, to spoil the entire effect, I had to go and remember that the soaring fireworks reminded me of ascending neurons from our genetics lecture, temporarily rewarding me with stares from my friends – to which I say, fair enough.

We stood around the carnie grounds wondering which of us would be brave enough to go on some incredibly high swirly twirly thing and could we actually pay to go on them when this incredibly dodgy guy came up to us and handed me 4 gleaming pieces of paper. I looked at him with a, do you think I’m gonna fall for that, look and he insisted, “Take it.”

To which I did, dumbfoundedly, without so much as a thank you, and he walked out. What did he give us?

Those my friends are 4 VIP Complimentary Passes to any theme park ride. We took several embarassing pics to commemorate our good luck and then proceeded to wander around like idiots looking for rides to which we could best use our free tickets to.

Only to find out we couldn’t use it on any ride. Oh yeah, it did allow us to go on one ride, but it wasn’t the amazing Solero shot-like ride or the uber cool Gravitron – ultimately it was the one that involved us having to sit on a shaky looking train and travel around a “haunted” “castle” to have “ghosts” and “monsters” with suspiciously large beer bellies grab at your legs while they scream frantically.

Note all my open inverted commas, because really, the words come with their own brand of reality.

So we did the next best thing and pawned them of to another group of four guys We spread the “luck” and got the hell outta there while they happilly hurried of to the Gravitron.

 On the way back my bus tickets didn’t work and that required me having to put on my Oliver Twist face “please sir, my ticket isn’t working” and that got me a free bus ride home.

Hung out with the girls, watched a Spanish movie on SBS which had a good storyline in and of itself but the lead actress had the distracting habit of removing her clothes in almost two thirds of the scenes.

And so went the Show 2007.

Good stuff, dubious tickets nonwithstanding.