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I realized it's been forever since I've blogged about actual events that happen to me, and today seems the perfect day to recount to all you avid readers. Prepare; it's really long. And also, please leave a comment. Just to lemme know people read it.


Matt, Sam, Paul, Jon, and myself all decided to go to the fair because a) we had free tickets and b) we had nothing better to do. So we all pile into Matt's car and get on the highway and head towards Fair Park.

In retrospect, we should have looked up where fair park was beforehand, but naturally we didn't. So we got off in downtown dallas and wandered around for a long time, with Matt making many illegal maneuvers involving red lights and one-way streets, and with me riding shotgun and shooting random things with an airsoft gun. Paul, Jon, and Sam are all in the back yelling "where's the fair?" at pedestrians.

Eventually, I start to know where we are, and we pull up to a stoplight. There's this crazy black homeless guy standing on the corner, rocking out to his CD player. He was having violent convulsions that I can only assume were dance moves, and looked like someone who would be fun to watch--through three inches of bullet-proof glass.

Naturally, Paul sees this guy and yells "Hey, do you know where the fair is?"

He pulls off his headphones (doesn't stop dancing though) and spasms over to the car. His upper body is going crazy and he's rocking back and forth across his feet.

"$3 for a train ticket, I can get you to the Fair, man. Just go straight down this road, then cross under a bridge, turn right, and you'll be right there at the fair."

We say thanks, Matt gives him two dollars, and then we speed off because the light turned green. The guy's directions were fairly accurate, except we never turned right, we just went straight and followed the signs that said "Fair Park" on them. We decided Paul owed Matt $2 for yelling out to the homeless guy.

Once we get to fair park, and park, and ride a tram/walk to the gate, there's a station where people are hand-scanning everone with metal detectors. I grabbed my knife out of my pocket and hid it behind my keys and cell phone and had them scan me. The thing beeped anyway, but the women just said thanks and signalled me on. Oh, the irony.

Once inside, these two women come up to us and ask if we had just gotten there. I nodded, and she handed us three tickets that they hadn't used. Right then, we were decided: the goal of today's trip was to get as much free stuff as possible without spending any money. So far so good, except for $8 for parking and $2 for a homeless bum. It would be hard to find $10 worth of free crap to reimburse the downpayments, but we were determined.

At that point, Eric and Calcy call us and we decide to meet up at Big Tex. On the way there, someone noticed a booth that proclaims "Fill out a survey and get a free souvenir!" "Free souvenir!" I say. "Let's do it!" So we walk over there and grab copies of the survey.

It turns out is was a Baptist church trying to get people to accept Jesus as their savior. I figured what the hell, this will be a fun survey, and start filling it out. It's basically a questionaire on whether or not you obeyed the ten commandments:







Long story short, it told me I was going to hell (which I already knew.) At that point, this hardcore looking guy with motorcycle clothes and a rebel-flag-in-the-shape-of-a-cross bandana comes up to us and hands us this:



At first I thought this guy was some weird satanist or something, but it turns out when you opened the liitle book it told you a prayer that you could say to forgive your sins and get into heaven. He said that if we repeat it after him, from our hearts, we'll accept Jesus as our savior and be forgiven. He started the prayer:




"Dear God,"

silence.

"Don't you say it all at once now. Repeat after me, from your heart.

Dear God,"

silence. Matt and I looked at each other and tried hard not to bust out laughing.

"Dear God, I'm so sorry for all of my sins."

silence. The man looked at all of us thoughtfully, then turned, said "I pray for all you guys," and walked off. We promptly turned away and burst out laughing.

Paul then points out that we didn't get our free souvenirs. He was right! So I walked back up to the counter where there were two "official" looking church people, and handed one my survey. I said I'm going to hell, and he told me it was alright. He asked if I knew how to avoid a fate of eternal damnation, and I said yeah, that guy over there already talked to me about it. Great, he said, so you've accepted Jesus? I said yes. I hadn't at all, but I figured I might as well lie, since I had already stolen two of their pencils after filling out the survey. Great! the guy said, and shook my hand. He then asked me if I would pray with him. I didn't want to miss this, so I said yes, and he grabbed my hand, and said a prayer outloud while I looked over at everyone else standing on the sidewalk cracking up. Finally, when he was done, he gave me this:



Born again, at the State Fair of Texas. Priceless. This is by far one of the coolest things I have ever gotten. He also gave me a "ten commandments" coin, which is a coin with the ten commandments on it. Then he and the other guy both shook my hand and I walked off, feeling quite renewed and uplifted.

At that point, we go find Eric and Calcy, and then go to the auto show, cause we like cars. We're looking around, and then Matt and Sam find a computer kiosk where you scan your driver's license and it gives you a card that wins you some amount of money between $5 and $1,000,000. I read the fine print, and it turns out that every card wins at least $5, so we naturally try to find ways to get more cards. Sam finds the "feed" button on the printer, but it doesn't print numbers and instead spits out blank cards. Matt trys his old driver's license and it works. So I pull out my trusty Albertsons Preferred card and swipe it. And it prints out another one! So we all pull out all our gift cards, shopping cards, and library cards, and go at it. We also find out that there are two other identical setups, and they aren't linked together. By the time we were done, we got 21 different cards, each worth $5.

Time to get out of there, go to wendys, and then a dodge dealer to validate the cards. On the way out, we get a bag of chips with the three free tickets.

After a long while driving in traffic and shooting random cars with airsoft guns, we get off the highway to go to wendys, and pull up to next to another homeless guy, sitting on the edge of the road. He starts saying something, about matt being young and having a car, and him being old and not having one, but we can't really understand him, so we ignore him. The light stays red. He keeps talking, and then Paul, in the back seat, rolls up his window. At that point, the hobo gets REALLY mad and stands up and starts walking to the car. Fortunately, the light turned green right then and matt floored the gas and got out of there. Hobos are scary.

After a quick trip to wendys (which involved a fat delivery man with a rat-tail pony tail complaining about overdrawn credit card fees and a random guy yelling at sam for trying to steal ribbon out of a basket on a helium tank), we find a dodge dealer. I walk up to the counter and hand him one card, and ask him if he can authorize it. He says "yeah" and goes into the back room. When he comes back, I, trying hard not to laugh, and kind of feeling bad, hand him the stack of 20 more and ask if he can do these too. He says "damn, man, that's a lot" and I laugh and say I know. "Damn," he says. And walks off to the back.

We look around at vipers and srt-4s, and then finally he comes back. We now have 21 cards, each worth $5. We split them up evenly between the five of us, and the extra one we decided to change to $500 and mail in just to see if it works.

So all in all, a fairly good day. I got saved, a ten commandments coin, a gospel, two golf pencils, and $20 of mail-in money. Oh, and a free 24oz. bottle of water from the ticket stub, which was free at school.

Not a bad haul. Afterwards, we threw sandwich meat at Mercedes' car.

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