Bread and Chocolate Fair
Dear Diary. It's Sunday.
Girlfriend suggests going to a place called a Bread and Chocolate Fair. As soon as the words "Bread and Chocolate Fair" come out of her mouth, I know it's going to be shit.
You see, I have a lot of experience with shit days out because I went on so many as a child. Garden centres, usually, or parks. Anywhere that was free to enter, my mom and dad would be drawn like flies. Probably because we were poor.
I used to follow my shitty family around: my mom, my dad, my brother and my sister. I generally looked and felt unwell: pale and tired, probably from staying up late the night before playing video games.
"Do you want to come?" Girlfriend says.
"Not really but I'll give it some thought," I say.
*****
It's afternoon and I'm driving Girlfriend and 3-year-old to the Bread and Chocolate Fair. I don't want to come but I'm the only one who can drive. Girlfriend doesn't have a driving licence and 3-year-old can't drive for the pathetically flimsy excuse that he's only three years old.
We get to the event. There's nowhere to park so I have to park three streets down.
Right. My plan now is to sit in the car for three hours and read a Goosebumps book.
"Are you sure you don't want to come?" says Girlfriend.
I look at 3-year-old. He's picking up bits of broken glass from the pavement.
Maybe I should keep an open mind. It might actually be good.
"Alright, I'll come," I say.
We get there. And it's just as I expected: shit. It's just stalls hawking expensive bread and chocolate. Now, I like bread and chocolate, but, given the choice, I wouldn't drive ten miles on a Sunday to go to a Bread and Chocolate Fair, if such a place existed, which it does, because I'm standing in it.
I just fucking knew it: I knew it would be shit. I can't say this to Girlfriend of course. Because she'll say something like, "Well, you should have just stayed in the car," and I won't be able to say anything back because she'll be right.
"There's activities for kids," says Girlfriend. She goes off and stands in a giant queue for some reason. I'm guessing it's the queue for the kids' activities.
3-year-old's found one of his friends from school. They start playing on some concrete steps. The steps are pretty high. If they fall down, it'd be a nasty injury. I start willing 3-year-old to fall down the steps so we can go to the hospital and get out of this fair.
Ten minutes later, Girlfriend comes back. "I've got tickets!" she says. "A ticket for the Make your own coaster and a ticket for Make your own toast with Nutella".
Make your own toast with Nutella? We could have done that at home.
We go and queue up for the Make your own coaster event. There are parents and children everywhere. It's a nightmare. Children screaming and running around.
I have a plan though. From my back pocket, I whip out a Goosebumps book. It's the Goosebumps book I was planning to read in the car. I can read it here, while the other parents deal with the kids.
My plan works well. Girlfriend helps 3-year-old with the activities while I read my book.
And then night comes. Girlfriend buys two big loaves of bread. They're still warm. One of them has chocolate in it and it’s really nice. We walk back to the car eating it. It's not bad, the Bread and Chocolate Fair.
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