Sunday, October 31, 2010

Fryeburg Fair In Eleven Quotes

I had a lot of great moments at Maine's Blue Ribbon Classic this year, and it's impossible to capture them all, but I used some of my favorite quotes to sum up my experiences. And yeah, they are pretty much all of Lane-origin because that's who I was hanging out with all week. Besides, they give you great quotes when you're around them for five minutes (Cassie had a whopper of one but it's not fit for publication).

"There's no law that says you have to think." - Amie Lane
Amie and I had a full appreciation for this sentiment after doing multiple runs to the box trailer located outside one of the gates. Really, people, shooting the breeze while a truck idles behind you on the road? Or not moving AT ALL when a truck is approaching you?

"Mmmm...pancakes and bacon sound really good right now." - Sarah (Lane) Rowe
This was one of the text messages I received shortly before I woke up on Saturday morning......three hours late. By itself, that's kind of a big oops but I also overslept two hours the previous Sunday. What can I say? When I oversleep, I do it right. So, I got up when our personal chef Momma Ann was bringing up breakfast for the crew.

"My knee is as tender as your eyeball." - Mike Lane
About three weeks prior to Fryeburg, Mike had a Nancy Kerrigan experience with an Angus. She belted his left knee - which was already his "bad knee" - once, knocking him down and then kicked him again in the same knee as he was getting up. That one took him out completely, setting his lower leg off about seven inches to the left. Mike chose not to go to the hospital until the following week, and then did nothing until my mother hauled him over to Bridgton where he was diagnosed with pulled ligaments, torn tendon, chipped bone and sacs of blood in his knee (or something like that). Impressively, he managed to keep his brace on, and occasionally used crutches. This also took him completely out of commission until it was time to show Lovely. She won the Futurity, her class, and was named Reserve Grand Champion Milking Shorthorn.

"Did you roll out of bed or get kicked out of bed this morning?" - Big Jeff Davis
This was the Tuesday morning greeting I received from Jeff as I took grain to Sarah in the milking parlor. It's an appropriate quote for Fryeburg Fair - who hasn't had a morning like this? - but I didn't fully understand why Jeff said it until Sarah said to me later...

"You do look different without your glasses...you look like you had a big drunk last night." - Sarah (Lane) Rowe
Tuesday morning I wasn't able to find my glasses at 4 am, and for a brief while, I walked around without them. My eyesight wasn't bad but I was having a rough go of it, and tended to be bitchy. Same thing on Thursday, when I went without glasses again.

"Bill Woodis punched Alex in the mouth." - Amie Lane
There is no truth to this statement. Alex got punched, but not by Bill. It was, however, the original version I heard, and I liked it best. It was also the first thing I heard from Amie after the Supreme Champion party on Thursday night, and just goes to show that you do miss out on a lot when you go to bed early.

"You don't bring new underwear to Fryeburg." - Kevin Clock
I'm intentionally leaving this one out of context because I think it's funnier that way. Kevin did admit that it's okay to bring new underwear if you're "kinda single."

"We are going to have a 'situation.' "- Mike Lane
"Situation" was the word of the week. In this case, it means the shit is going to hit the fan. Our "almost-situations" revolved around feed tubs being flung down about an hour after our cows laid down, lights being turned off over the cows, people asking about the Jerseys, people in the road pissing off Amie, Amie nearly running over Jolene Gushee, and Sarah and Amie almost having a few "sister situations". Of course, there were actual situations at the Supreme Champ party, but in Barn 3, the closest real situation we had was the Great Radio War of 2010.

"Jess, why are you so wet?" - Amie Lane
Speaking of situations, Amie was trying to get herself into one when she asked me about my wet clothing on Friday morning. Amie conveniently had to do laundry immediately after milking while Sarah and I worked on washing the cows and fixing the pack. The laundry took Amie about two hours to do, so we were just about done washing when she returned. I thought Amie was having a really, really blonde moment when she asked, but I still wanted to literally pop her in the face. I mumbled some sort of reply in an attempt to not sound bitchy, but Amie later admitted she knew exactly what she was doing. Yeah, it's funny now....

"For a second there, I thought we were at the Fireman's Muster." - Martin Lane
Speaking of being wet, there was a Diet Pepsi incident. While visiting with Martin and Becky Lane, I knocked my bottle off the top of the showbox where it hit the ground...and subsequently covered Becky in a spray of soda, even though I tried to close the cover as quickly and as tightly as I could. It was impressive how it shot out of the bottle like water out of a fire hose, thus Martin's quick comment was spot on.

"Screw it...screw it....screw it...screw it...screw it....screw it." - Nicholas Rowe, four-year-old son of Sarah
I absentmindedly said "screw it" in front of Nicholas as we were packing things up on Sunday night. He proceeded to repeat the phrase as many different ways as he could, even after I told him he shouldn't say it. See, even kids get sick of Fryeburg Fair.