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Every August, like moths to a bug zapper, Minnesotans flock to the State Fair. If you ask why they willingly wedge themselves among 2 million of their fellow citizens over the course of the event during what are among the hottest days of the year to consume bacon-wrapped alligator on a stick, they’ll look at you blankly and say, “Because it’s the fair,” as though that somehow explains everything.
For 12 glorious days, people pack themselves tighter than lutefisk in a church basement, waddling shoulder to shoulder, sweating through their purple SKOL T-shirts like it’s a competitive event. It’s 94 degrees in the shade — but that doesn’t stop us. Oh no. We’re hardy folk. We’ve survived 40-below Januaries. We can certainly endure heatstroke for a paper boat of cheese curds — that costs somewhere between your first car payment and your dignity.
The Minnesota State Fair is a curious cultural phenomenon — equal parts festival, endurance test and public sauna. It’s a place where grown adults stand in line for an hour to eat a single roasted ear of corn while quietly melting into the pavement. Not gold-flaked or truffle-infused corn. Just corn. On a stick. With enough butter to clog a city’s plumbing. You could grow your own in less time. But we wait. Because … tradition.
Getting there is its own adventure. Any attempt to park within three ZIP codes of the fairgrounds will cost you either $60 or a kidney. And you’re parked on someone’s crabgrass, praying your car doesn’t sink into their septic system. Or you can park and ride — 48 strangers in various stages of sunburn, packed into a humid shuttle that smells like sunblock, regret and deep-fried turkey legs.
Once inside the fair, the question becomes: Where to start? Should you eat your weight in fried cheese before or after visiting the Miracle of Birth barn? (Tip: Always after.) Children ride oversized fiberglass fruits while their parents pray for shade. Butter sculptures slowly lose their facial features as the day progresses, leaving behind haunting dairy ghosts of fair royalty past.
Seats in the shade are a myth, so you end up on a curb between a guy in cargo shorts yelling, “MARGE, WHERE’S MY TICKET?” and a toddler face-deep in blue cotton candy having a full-body sugar seizure. The animal barns greet you with the smell of warm manure and teenage 4-H sweat, where you may witness a cow trying to give birth while a dad explains to his kid, “This is natural — just don’t look directly at it.” It’s always a test to see which melts faster — your $32 jumbo snow cone or your patience. And yet, when someone asks why we do this year after year, we all give the same answer:
