Party Like It's 1499

The old Steven Wright line still holds up: if they say you can have breakfast anytime, ask for French toast during the Renaissance.



We did Ren Fest today. I wish we could do it more than once a year, but it ain't cheap. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, ticket prices went up this year, from Unreasonable to Dear Gawd!



But worth it.

Last year I wanted to get Mo on the Pirate Plunge, but for some reason I remember it as being too expensive. Or maybe it was too long a line. But this year, I saw it was $5, and for what it is, that seems reasonable.



I wanted for all three of us to do it, but Em was scared (it's a scary deal) and I'm too fat. They have a strict 200lb weight limit, and yes, they do weigh you. They even weigh little kids to make sure they get on one that has enough lines. The four rigs have various quantities of bungie, depending on the girth of the victim.



It was a long wait, probably around 45 minutes. They bent the policy that said I couldn't wait with Mo since I wasn't in line to go myself. I was ready to explain about autism, but the guy who had strapped her harnass on seemed to get it. I said, 'I know you've bot this policy and all, but I really doubt she'd wait in line on her own and if I'm on the other side of the net when she bolts, it'd be too much head start.'



It wasn't a problem. He clearly didn't want to have it be his obligation to catch her.



She did really well with the wait overall. Then, when it was her turn, it was too exciting. She flopped face down on the trampoline and would not stand up. The guy running the one she was on, he was great about it, kind of catching her with the hooks that go through the harnass loops.



Then the giggling began. She might have been this happy on the Mamba at Worlds of Fun, but this might have topped that. At a rough guess, she was 30 to 35 feet in the air at apogee. The only bummer is after all that waiting the whole thing is over in like a minute. They stopwatch it (I guess they'd have to), and I'm guessing it's sixty seconds once you're flung.



I think they could have had eight or twelve rigs instead of four and kept them busy. And if I'd seen the underside of 200lbs in the past twenty years, I'd be doing it too.



We caught the usual suspects too. Missed the joust this year, but caught the Jolly Rogers, the blacksmith, various performers, etc.



We rode a spinny ride. I tried to get the girls to ride an elephant. I wanted to ride it, too, and at $4 per person, it seems reasonable. The food and veterinary costs of an animal like that must be enormous. And what a singular experience, to actually ride the world's largest land mammal.

Then again, maybe it's just as well the honyocks left that $12 in my pocket.



Oh, and they really knew how to handle time-outs for kids in the good old days!



As we were heading out, we came across an actor who was what? A village idiot? A primitive recycler? A rubish fetishist?

He was the Renaissance version of the Peanuts character Pigpen.



He tried to get Mo's attention, but his schtick didn't seem to connect with her. He'd about given up when Em, bored, noticed a ticket stub on the ground and picked it up.



He held out the trash pail he was carrying for it and she put it in, a little nervous about this grubby weirdo.



He immediately fell on his face, appearently kissing the earth before her in gratitude. Which elicited a gasp at first, and when he stayed down, making a moaning noise, she ran behind me.