It has been quite warm and humid the past couple of days, making this the perfect time to reflect on the trip my lovely wife and I took to the Great New York State Fair on opening day this year. The Fair is a unique place, where you will see things that I suppose you could find elsewhere -- but not all in one location. No, to see what one sees at the Fair would require an extensive, well-planned field trip to a variety of locations fraught with unique perils and bearing their own unusual flavors.

For example, I am sure there are places in the world where the ground, both paved and unpaved, is covered in as much unidentifiable fluid as one finds at the Fair. I'm not certain where those places would be, and I'm not altogether sure I'd want to visit them if I did, but the Fair probably does not hold the monopoly on large puddles and small rivers of liquid that appear to be, but almost certainly are not, water.

The Fair is a place where crafts long thought extinct are kept alive. Wood carving of signs proclaiming your home to belong to the Smiths, or the Joneses, or the Bernardis, or whomever, is a trade alive and well at the Fair. So too are more obscure undertakings. I had heard, for instance, that one may have one's name printed on a grain of rice. Don't bother asking why. It is enough that man, in his technological brilliance, has managed to accomplish this.

As if this marvel were not enough, one is encouraged to glimpse The Future every thirty feet or so at the Fair, for every thirty feet or so is a stand selling "Dippin' Dots," the alleged "Ice Cream of the Future." After we passed the sixth or seventh of these -- I should point out that I've never actually seen anyone purchasing the Ice Cream of the Future, nor have I seen any, which I gather to be some sort of freeze-dried candy substance -- my wife eyed the stand critically.

"For as long as I can remember they've had these stands for the Ice Cream of the Future," she said. "When is it going to become the ice cream of the present?"

We pressed on, stepping over oddly-colored puddles to make our way to the Midway. Several rides already bearing fairgoers were in motion, and speakers on those rides pumped out a level of sound equal to two Boeing 747s carrying KISS tribute bands performing live concerts as the aforementioned jets crash into each other rolling down the tarmac while the pilots slam on squeaky landing-gear brakes and a thousand members of the ground crew scratch their fingernails on electronically amplified blackboards while screaming, "LAND! LAND! LAND! KISS ROCKS!"

As we passed the bored and evil carnival barkers huddling over their flimflam ring toss games, counting their inventories of prize dead goldfish floating in plastic bags of putrid water, a Representative of 21st Century Culture passed us.

"I said, I'M ON THE MIDWAY!" the woman yelled into her wireless phone. "I'M PASSING THE RING TOSS! YES, THE FISH ARE ALL DEAD! FISH! DEAD! MIDWAY!"

We decided to ride the Ferris Wheel first. As we stepped aboard the hastily erected metal platform, the entire contraption began to vibrate from the impact of our steps. It occurred to me -- as it did to my wife -- that we were about to entrust our lives to men who have as many teeth remaining as they have completed grades in school. Nary a non-tattooed square inch of flesh was to be seen, and I made the usual peace-sign hand-signals to the Spanish-only-speaking carnie, indicating that there were indeed two of us willing to entrust ourselves to his care.

The Ferris Wheel carriages are large, and two high school-age girls rode opposite us in our car. As we rose high enough to see the fair, I noticed that the brand new roller coaster (that had been advertised in the local paper as a Fair addition this year) was shut down and covered with tarps, having apparently killed someone already. The two girls spotting something else and began pointing at it.

"Look, they just fixed that one! We've gotta go on!"

"Girls," I wanted to say, "Let's think about this. Just fixed it? I'd say wait a few turns." Then I considered the often-suppressed function of Natural Selection in our society, and held my tongue.

We spent some time touring the animal buildings at the Fair, whereupon I discovered that there are perhaps eighty million jillion species of different bunnies in the world. The bunnies are arranged in the building in order of increasing size; they start out the size of guinea pigs and are approximately the size of dogs or small cattle when you reach the far end of the structure. Until then I never knew there existed in the world bunnies large enough to kill and eat me. Now I have nightmares.

As we were leaving, a small girl noticed that an entire row of guinea pig cages was mislabeled as rabbits. I wanted very much to make a cynical remark, but I have frightened enough children that way.

We toured the Center of Progress building, where representatives from all manner of New York agencies roost. I completed my collection of Attorney General Eliot Spitzer refrigerator magnets, and picked up a rather ominous pamphlet. "STOP BACKYARD BURNING," it commanded. Until then I'd never known it was such a problem.