Renaissance Man

My kids like knights and princesses. I have a boy and a girl, so this works out well (yes, the boy likes knights and the girl likes princesses).

So the wife and I decided to pack up the kids yesterday and take them to King Richard's Faire in Carver, MA. This is a yearly event where you can relive the days of merry old England, complete with knights and wenches, after you pay $25 per adult and $14 per child to gain thy entrance.

My kids were pretty psyched about this. I've been to this before, and it is actually pretty cool to visit every so often. The key words here are "visit" and "every so often". The last time I came to this thing was about 8 years ago, and (SPOILER ALERT) I think the same actors are there. One lady told us she would give us passes for next weekend...my wife and I looked at each other and said, "who would come here more than once a year?". Then you walk in, and you discover you're in a land that time forgot...with people have never played a sport in their life...and probably bought hookers for their first sexual experience.

One thing you realize when you walk through these things is that more than half the people there have dressed up for it. Now, I'm not talking kids dressing up in their plastic knight outfits...I'm talking GROWN PEOPLE - adults...some MORE than adults (say, 60-ish), wearing chainmail and carrying swords, and merry ol' grandma's hiking up and pushing their lengthy boobs up and out of a cinched up corset.

I love boobs popping out as much as the next guy..but I think most out-of-shape women feel that a renaissance fair is THE place to finally..finally..wear a corset. So they take their 400 pound bodies with their 25 pound boobs...mash them into a corset, then hire the neighbors and a small college moving company (college guys are the best, as they'll do anything if it involves boobs) to cinch the bejeesus out of the thing..and off they go. The real problem with this visual is that although they look all hot and bosomy up top, they are STILL big women. As such, the visage appears to look like those stress ball things you get from Spencer gifts...you know, the ones you put in your hand and squish. The part in your hand is fine, but the rest of the jelly inside has nowhere else to go but out the other ends. Nasty...Nasty stuff that jelly.

The majority of these people are freakish. They talk in fake English accents...they carry on conversations about mead and ale...and they DON'T EVEN WORK THERE. WTF is wrong with these people?! Early on, my son had his picture taken with a knight - very cool looking...armor, sword..the whole deal. The knight took time to teach him the ways of chivalry, laws, how to properly shake hands with a knight...it was cool. An hour later, we see this guy sitting next to us in the stands at the joust. He was a customer. Nice guy..but seriously?!? You just know these people can't wait to get back home after the faire (yes, people in England spelled everything with "e"'s at the end for some odd reason), where they hang up their battle axes, break out the Dungeons and Dragons and play till all hours of the night...still high on the fumes from the blacksmith's fire.

One thing that confused me. I saw two people dressed like Samurai. Really. I also saw some guy dressed in a turban with a big curvy sword. I assume he was trying to be Aladdin. Were they lost? Did they not know that this was, like, kings and knights and shit? Is this all they had in their closet...or was their knight outfit at the dry cleaners and this was all they had left? I didn't get it.

Now, after you stare at enough bosoms popping out (which, honestly, does not get tiring), you get hungry. We packed along lunches, as I wasn't sure how well my kids would take to eating a roast pig. So the wife and I dug into traditional medieval fare (please note the traditional Old English spelling):

1) Ye Old Pepperoni Pizzae
2) Thine Divine Diete Pepsie
3) Her Majesty's Royal Onion Ringse

..wow...takes you right back to the days of old.

Enough fried food that I should be fighting off little brown dragons for most of the day today. Huzzah.