Okay, my sucklings.

Perch upon this withered teat and enjoy what momma's got for supper this evenin'.

As I listen to the soundtrack for The Big Lebowski, I shall regail you with the tale of the origins of this blog's name, "pony rides and monkey pictures."

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, Third and Jefferson to be exact, a loathsome 2-day plague did scourge the Kentucky International Convention Center. This abomination was of the travelling c-rate circus variety, and thanks to my stepson's public normalizing station Crescent Hill branch, lo and behold, I had a ticket.

Now the sneaky bastards at the public normalizing station, being in cahoots with anyone who offers a handout, willingly gave all the children FREE ADMISSION to the aforementioned shit on a stick event which was otherwise not readily advertised, nor was a website to be found. This means that the kids hit the streets in a full-tilt frenzy to go to this FREE EVENT, and beseiged under-informed parents relented and did go. We were among those parents who, upon arriving at the FREE EVENT, were wrenched of the very air in their lungs from the sticker shock of adult admission prices. This feces parade came at a whopping $25.00 a ticket. This means that we would have had to shell out $50.00 to see a tiny c-rate poop-a-palooza set up in one of the smaller arenas in what is already a small convention center. Screw that, my peoples.

As tears began welling in many a small childs' eyes, along comes someone handing out BUY ONE GET ONE FREE coupons to the crap trap hullabaloo on a stick. This is a figure we can handle, so we fork up the clams and make our way to the circus.

As we neared the arena, we tried to prepare the boy for just how shitty a travelling c-rate circus can be, so as to firmly squelch any wild visions of dancing unicorns and tight rope walking lions and shit he may have billowing in his little skull cap. We enter the arena to find that half of it was curtained off, which means that they didn't have enough crap to fill up this unimpressive space.

Of course, they had every imaginable plastic and inflatable piece of crap Taiwan ever produced and many a varied fried and sugar-coated processed food products for sale at exorbitant prices. Successfully wrangling our child past such glorified crapola, we made it to one of the three sets of bleachers facing the three small rings of the circus schmircus.

Clowns and acrobats were shovelling up goat and horse poo, the costumed ringmaster was peddling rides on the most oppressed looking mini-equines I have ever seen, and the lion tamer was taking photos of kids standing next to a monkey on a chain. The whole affair was a sad shadow of what the circus engenders in the hearts and minds of young and old. It was like watching a heroin addicted clown with bone cancer make three legged balloon animals.

Above this melange of grim and grotesque, an announcer compulsively hocked their pre-show wares, "Children, be sure to come on down and get your pony rides and monkey pictures!"

That's all life really is, I guess. Pony rides and monkey pictures indeed.