Well, it’s that time again.  The livestock show, fair, and rodeo is in town gain.  “Oh, what fun,” some are saying.  But not the moms.

 Now, even though we put all three of these things into one mouthful doesn’t mean they are the same thing.  Nope, not at all.  They are three distinct things, all of which make a mom run as fast as she can in the other direction, but for different reasons.

Take the fair, for example.  A family with three kids shows up to ride the rides.  You buy the wristbands, you buy the funnel cakes, you climb the wall, you ride the mechanical bull, and before you can blink an eye, you’re out a whole bunch of money.

For the last several years, I have offered each of my children $20 to not go to the fair.  Each time one of them took me up on it, I came out WAY ahead.  Mothers hate hearing the words, “I want to go to the fair tonight … can I have some money?” 

Then there’s the rodeo.  I love watching the rodeo.  But then your kids get old enough where they want to be IN it, and unless you’ve been brought up doing that kind of thing, just about the only thing that’s open to the public is the “MAD COW CONTEST”.

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, they take this big cow with huge horns and I don’t know what all they do to rile her up, but I do know that she is mad, big time, when they open the gate.  There are three men who are hanging all over her, with a rope around her horns. 

The goal is for one of the team members to ride this cow across a finish line.  Watching them try to get a mad cow to do anything is pretty funny unless you happen to be related to one of them.  Then it’s just plain scary.

First, they try to hold her still long enough to get a rope wrapped around her belly.  If they succeed without one or all of them getting flung across the arena, then one of the guys gets up on her and hangs on for dear life.  The other two have to somehow get the original rope off her horns, which is a big problem, because, like I said, she is pretty mad about this whole thing.

If, by some miracle, none of them are gored at this point, they try to point the beast in the right direction.  Try to get any female to go where you want her to go, and you know it’s impossible. 

If, by another miracle, she starts going, the poor guy on her back has nothing to hold onto but this one rope.  Most don’t make it over the finish line.  Those that do have another obstacle:  how to get off.  Last night, one team crossed the finish line, and then the cow slammed the rider into the far wall.

You’ve got to be crazy to want to do this to your own body.  I knew I was in trouble when my son said, simply and quietly, “How cool”. 

The guy next to us said he had done it when he was young.  The guy behind us wanted to show us his scar from when he did it.  Turns out it’s sort of like a coming of age thing.  Every guy thinks he has what it takes and just wants to try it once.  Mothers cringe.

Then there’s the livestock show.  I don’t know how I’ve gotten out of my kids wanting to raise animals all these years, but that holiday seems to be coming to an end here pretty soon.  My two youngest kids both said they want to raise something for next year’s fair.

My friends automatically start rubbing salt in the wound, and suggest to my kids that they raise pigs.  It’s more than that, even … they ENCOURAGE them to raise a pig.  Then they wink at each other, and they laugh.  I don’t know what all they’re laughing at, but I can tell you this:  a pig is probably the last thing I want my kids to raise.

Well, my son is going to the fair tonight, he wants to go watch the Mad Cows again, and he definitely wants to raise a pig.

And people wonder why moms try to avoid the fair.