A couple of weeks ago, LuckySevens called me up and asked if we would like to go with them to the Carp Fair. It’s an annual event, featuring all the usual fair-like stuff, even traditional fare like animal judging competitions and dog obedience shows. I said, sure thing, sign us up.

I imagined we’d spend the day riding the amusement rides and feeding the animals at the petting zoo. We’d get a hot dog for lunch, and a candy apple for dessert. We’d play a few games, win a cute stuffed animal or two, and then watch the horse races.

And guess what? You can have that dream.

But IT’LL COST YOU.

I cannot believe what it cost us to visit this quaint little country fair for three hours (our visit was sandwiched between Little Miss Sunshine’s naptimes).

We had to pay to get in. We had to pay for the rides, and holy mackerel, they were expensive — we figured out that each ride was costing us around $3.75, PER KID. We had to pay for food for the petting zoo animals. Don’t even get me started on how much it cost for those little baby doughnuts. Little warm, chocolately, morsels of pure joy. Why must you bring down my sugar buzz by costing so much that only two of my three children can now attend university?

Thank goodness we have a kid with food allergies. We’d packed all our own snacks and food because we knew there wouldn’t be anything for the Captain to eat there. Otherwise, we’d easily have gone over $100 on the day.

I did not realize that a little trip out to the local fair was going to eat up our family vacation fund for the year.

Next year…assuming we go again…we’re definitely going to focus on the free stuff (the animals, the horse show) and leave the midway to the end. Then we’ll let everyone go on ONE RIDE ONLY before we claim that the Little Miss needs her nap, and we must be off. Yikes!