My friend Deb bought pot at the fair (oops...I meant "a pot")

It first began in the year of ought eight. Sydney, her friend Ashley and I were excitedly watching the sea lion show at the great New York State Fair. As the show concluded, the trainers began to set up a small sea lion kiosk. A man's disgusted voice suddenly rang out over the spectators, "What idiot is going to pay $8 for a picture with some seals?" You guessed it...that idiot would be me. I hissed, "They're sea lions," at Mr. Killjoy before crowd-surfing my way to the front of the line.

So it was that we now have a nifty little collection of pictures chronicling every year that we've visited the fair. With my daughters grown and reluctantly occupied with other events, my friend Deb chose to accompany me to the fair this year. As luck would have it, we arrived just as the picture-taking kiosk was being assembled. I grabbed Deb's arm to pull her with me next to our new friends and was surprised to find myself instead engaged in a wrestling match. "I'm not getting my picture taken," Deb protested. Unfortunately for Deb, this was not a battle that she was EVER going to win. It's the equivalent of telling a 4-year-old that he can't see Santa at the mall. "I can't believe that you spent ten dollars on that thing," she complained as I clutched my picture happily, floating on Cloud 9 after having received a sea lion smooch on my cheek. She said this BEFORE she dropped over $300 on a cooking pot AFTER making me sit for 45 minutes watching a cooking demonstration where all I got for my trouble was to taste a blanched carrot coin.

Oh my goodness...I'm skipping the other Deb Debacle. I had strayed away from Deb as she grilled the Sleep Number people about implementing a trade-in system because she wants to upgrade to the new independently-operated front-raising mechanism. I gravitated, transfixed, over to a corral of massage chairs. I observed the current, seemingly comatose, occupants and thought, How can they lay there with all these people staring at them? Some discreet investigating on my part revealed that the massage chair experience was free so I grabbed Deb and began wrestling match number two. Stacy, our rather lackluster massage chair consultant, directed us to two chairs. I dove right in. Deb, talking on the cell to her husband about her lack of success with the Sleep Number people, had to be guided in for a landing by the sulking Stacy. Hugged by my chair, I was transported to a magical new world. I know this doesn't exactly sound magical but I lack the necessary words to describe the euphoric bliss that I experienced as the chair billowed up around my feet and legs like a blood pressure cuff and rotating balls pinched and prodded their way up my back, across my shoulders and to my neck while waves of heat sporadically seeped into my skin. Was I at all concerned about the hundreds of people staring at me? As I told my family, I could have been naked and painted blue  at this point and I wouldn't have cared.  EXCEPT...

Except...apparently Deb was not pleased with the roominess of her initial chair and demanded that Stacy move her to a more acceptable apparatus. I believe Deb may have been done taking to her husband at this point so, as she was hands-free, I'm not sure why Stacy had to carry half of my demanding friend's stuff to the new location. I really didn't care because I had entered a new life dimension by this time. Ensconced in her new chair, Deb was quiet for approximately seven seconds before she began bellowing for poor Stacy, demanding to be released from this torturous leg-squeezing contraption. Normally I wouldn't have cared two hoots for Deb's complaints EXCEPT Stacy turned off my chair too! What is this...guilty by association!?!? Despite all of this, though, I can still say that I had a "fairly" good time at the fair with my friend Deb. She's just lucky that I don't embarrass her all the time!