Orville Redenbacher was Brazilian

Red and I had the pleasure of enjoying each others' company last weekend. Due to the distance between us, we average a visit about once every two weeks. We would love for it to be more often, but the miles and the money force us to have to work with what we have. It works for now.

On Saturday, we met in Brazil, Indiana for the 10th Annual Clay County Popcorn Festival. This is the birthplace and childhood home of the legendary popcorn tycoon Orville Redenbacher. The fair was thick with Orvillemania. They had banners, t-shirts, lounge chairs, and tons of other memorabilia covered with his likeness.

They gave away free popcorn and had an expert who knew 'everything' about old Orville, despite the fact that he always ignored me when I asked about Mr. Redenbacher's mysterious death in a hot tub. That really happened; look it up. I stopped pressing for answers when I saw the popcorn police show up.

It was a small festival, but it was entertaining. We had only been there a few minutes when we ran into this guy.

It was very entertaining to watch him mess with the fair-going public. His most unnerving trick was to get close to someone and just hold his pose. Most people couldn't handle it and would move away. I would love to have his job.

That's her

It was a great day, but one thing happened that doesn't normally happen to me. I have written on several occasions about my uncanny and unwanted ability to draw children to me. Some past posts about this superpower can be found here, here, here, here, and Red even wrote about the time she witnessed it here. However, on Saturday, it was something different. A little girl yelled at me.

This was not any sort of a joke. She was mad at me and made sure to let me know it. If fact, it took me a moment to even figure out what she was mad about.

A few minutes earlier, Red and I had just gotten our free popcorn and a boy on a bicycle stopped to look at the Army Man from the picture above. When bringing his bike to a stop, he stumbled a little and spilled about half the popcorn out of his bag. Having just turned around from the popcorn stand with a full bag, I leaned forward and said, "Here you go, buddy" and refilled his bag. I'm not a big fan of popcorn anyway, so I was happy to pour my popcorn into his bag.

A few minutes later, Red and I are debating over whether to eat fried Reese's peanut butter cups or fried Oreos. We had just come to the decision to buy both when I hear a girl screaming from about 15 feet away.

KEEP YOUR HANDS OUT OF OTHER PEOPLE'S FOOD!!!

I spin around to see her glaring at me. I wanted to walk over and knock the popcorn out of her hands, but decided against it. I haven't dated Red long enough to know if she would be comfortable with me striking children in her presence.

The incident left me to wonder which child I should even be disgusted with. I obviously wasn't impressed with the little girl who yelled at me, but I later realized that she wasn't even there when the supposed offense occurred. I hadn't touched that kid's popcorn. I poured some from my bag into his. That means he griped about it to her after the fact and lied about what had actually happened. Is it any wonder why I don't like children.

Despite the momentary distraction, we still had our fried desserts. And I touched all of them.