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The fairgrounds were as hot as they could be in the height of August. Although the doors had only opened an hour ago,  clouds of dust were already being kicked up by out-of-control, screaming children. Pam felt a headache coming on even though the tinny carnival music hadn’t started blaring yet from all the speakers. In a few hours, near dusk, the neon lights would start to glow, Scranton teens would arrive, and Pam would have to use all her will power to drag Roy home. They had to work tomorrow… whether he liked it or not. Sometimes, just sometimes, Pam felt more like Roy’s mommy than his fiancée.

  

Roy was rubbing Pam’s arm up and down just like he always did when he wanted her to do something he knew she didn’t want to do, “Come on, babe! Don’t be such a wuss!”

 

Pam pulled her arm away, “I’m not going. You can’t make me. I did it last year and I got sick. People…”

 

“Ah, babe, that’s cause you ate a chili dog before you went. All you've had is a salad! You’ll be fine,” Roy was using his ‘you’re being stupid’ voice. She hated that voice.

 

Pam crossed her arms defensively, “So the giant cotton candy we just ate doesn’t count? Or the diet coke I drank on the ride over? Roy, I’m not going on the Zipper and that’s final. Let’s go on some other ride, okay?”

 

“Why the hell did we come early? You know the only reason to come early is to avoid the lines!”  Roy had that pissed look in his eyes. She was glad he hadn’t had any beer yet.

 

Pam put her hand on his arm to soothe him before he made a scene, “Let’s go on the Ferris Wheel so we can see everything in the…”

 

He yanked his arm away, “Screw that! The Ferris Wheel? Call me when they have g-forces sucking you almost out of your skin!”

 

“Hey…..” at the sound of a new voice, Roy and Pam immediately stopped arguing. Jim was standing several feet away looking very awkward and very alone. He’d obviously witnessed some, if not all, of their argument.

 

Flustered, Pam instinctively moved between Jim and Roy. “Oh, hey Jim. What are you…”

 

“Halpert. Thank god you’re here. Tell Pam she’s being stupid.” Roy ordered as if he expected Jim to instantly support him in this argument.

 

Jim looked from Pam to Roy and back to Pam. “Uh….”

 

Pam ignored Roy’s last statement, “I thought you said you weren’t coming.”

 

Still looking faintly uncertain, Jim smiled at Pam. “Oh yeah, that. Well, when I found out that Dwight was entering a ‘vegetable of prodigious size’, well, I couldn’t stay away.”

 

Pam laughed, “No! Why didn’t he tell me? When did you find out? Why didn’t you tell…”

 

“Who cares?” Roy barked, “Let’s get on some of the good rides before these little squirts start puking all over the place.” Roy pointed at roving gangs of young boys who were reading the height requirements on the ‘coolest’ rides.

 

“Hey,” Jim acted as if he’d had a startling idea, “How about Pam and I go check out Dwight’s entry while you ride the Zipper?”

 

Pam’s eyes lit up and she turned hopefully to Roy. He looked less than pleased. “No way, she doesn’t want to see some stupid giant pumpkins. Anyway, who wants to go on a ride alone?”

Pam immediately countered, “Oh, and it's fun going on rides I don’t want to go on?”

 

“Fine! Call me when you want to get a life!” With a disparaging look, Roy stormed off to the line of boys waiting for The Zipper.

 

Uncertainly, Pam watched as he walked away. “Maybe I should…” her voice trailed off.

 

“Oh yeah… sure. No problem. Actually, I wanted to go check out some of those rides myself. I hear they've got some new burlap bags for the giant slide.” Jim looked across the midway towards the kiddie section.

 

Pam giggled, “I’m so glad Roy didn’t hear that!”

 

Jim started strolling towards the 4-H buildings when he saw he had Pam’s attention, “Hey, that slide has some major g-forces. Gravity, you know, Pam. Gravity. It’s a…”

 

Pam interrupted him to point at a booth next to the Orbitron, “Hey, win me a penguin,”

 

“A penguin? Are you kidding? Why would you…” he paused. The booth was a basketball game. “These games are all rigged.”

 

“Yeah, yeah. Win me a penguin or...,” Pam tried to think of the most threatening thing possible. “Or I’ll tell everyone your favorite ride is the Giant Slide!” She was eyeing a gigantic bright orange penguin made out of some nasty man-made fabric. “What do you think they make Carnival stuffed animals out of?”

 

“Recycled nuclear waste,” Jim conjectured. “Can’t play anyway. There’s no carnies around.”

 

“Carnies?” Pam looked at him appraisingly.

 

Jim lifted an eyebrow, “Carnival workers, carny, plural... carnies. What?”

 

“Nothing. I just… I just never imagined you saying the word carnies,” Pam continued to stare at him until he was completely disconcerted.

 

“So carny workers don’t show up much at Dunder-Mifflin,” he shrugged as way of an excuse. “Hey! You know what word I can’t imagine you saying?”

 

“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?” Pam guessed just as Jim said, “G-Forces.”

 

Before either could say anything, an unwashed, unkempt man walked up. “You want to play this game?”

 

Pam nodded enthusiastically, “Yes, yes he does!”

 

Jim sighed in mock surrender. “Yeah, how much?”

 

The carny pointed at one of twenty signs surrounding the booth. “Three balls, one dollar. Win your girly a stuffed animal.”

 

Pam clapped her hands. “Win your girly a stuffed animal, Jim!” She bounced slightly to egg him on.

 

“These games are all rigged,” he mumbled.

 

The carny grabbed the dollar out of Jim’s hand before saying in an aggrieved tone, “None of the games here are rigged, man. Everything’s on the up and up. These are games of skill and luck.”

“Skill and luck, Jim!” Pam nodded ferociously, “Skill and luck!”

 

The carny smiled. “The little lady’s right. Give your fella a kiss for luck, miss. Can’t do anything about the skill.”

    

 

 

“He’s so repulsive!” Pam said merrily as she held the day-glo orange penguin out in front of her.

 

Jim rolled his eyes, “Great.”

 

“I’m going to name him Buster!” She looked fondly at Jim as they entered the exhibition building.

     

 

 

It was easy enough to find Dwight’s giant vegetable due to the fact that Dwight was standing in front of it, guarding it from any and all possible giant vegetable thieves.

 

“Dwight,” Jim said simply.

 

Dwight replied in the same tone, “Jim.”

 

Pam happily broke into this riveting conversation, “Jim says you’ve entered a vegetable for the fair. Is it a giant beet?”

 

Dwight looked at her dismissively. “Hardly, Pam. The largest beet on record was grown by John Evans in 1999. It was 42.75 pounds.”

 

“That’s a lot of beet,” Jim noted.

 

“Well, the man specializes in growing giant vegetables.” Dwight began to reel off John Evans’ record vegetables, “Cauliflower, broccoli, rutabaga, zucchini, carrot…”

 

 “Wow,” Pam tried to sound impressed. “How does he do it?”

 

Dwight’s eyes narrowed as he looked around the empty expo building. He leaned forward so that only Pam and Jim could hear him. “I think he uses the Dark Arts… or really good manure.”

 

Pam and Jim nodded in unison.

 

“Can’t beat that,” Jim admitted.

 

“I’ve written to him. He was not forthcoming with his secrets.” Dwight searched the room once more for any possible eavesdroppers before admitting, “I even offered to pay him.”

 

Pam looked at Jim in amusement before asking Dwight, “You offered to pay him to teach you the Dark Arts?”

 

Dwight looked startled at the possibility, “I offered to pay him for his manure, of course. He sent me something in the mail but it didn’t smell like any manure I’ve ever seen.”

 

“So you didn’t use it?” Jim asked.

 

“Jim. I just won the gold rosette for this year’s Largest Turnip. Thirty seven pounds. Of course, I used it,” Dwight acted as if he was talking to an infant.

 

Pam considered the mammoth turnip. “It looks kind of like a beet,” she finally said.

 

This was enough for Jim, “Are you sure it isn’t a beet, Dwight?”

 

Dwight looked horrified, “Of course it’s not a beet. Look at the sign. It’s a turnip. It has a white root. Come on, you’ve seen turnips before.”

 

Pam turned to Jim for confirmation, “I thought turnips came in bunches.”

 

Jim nodded.

 

Dwight stared at them in disbelief. “You’re thinking of radishes. This is obviously a turnip.” In exasperation, Dwight pointed at the turnip, “Look at it! A beet looks nothing like this. A beet’s leaf has a reddish stalk!”

 

Jim and Pam looked the turnip over. “I don’t see a stalk,” Jim pointed out.

 

“Of course not!” Dwight said angrily, “I removed the stalk before oiling the beet for presentation.”


“You said beet,” Pam pointed out.

 

Dwight’s eyes popped open, stunned. “I did not! I said turnip.”

 

“You said beet, Dwight, I heard you,” Jim looked with concern at Dwight’s turnip. “Maybe you should change the sign to ‘Possibly a turnip, but more likely, a beet’.”

 

Dwight looked at the card doubtfully.

 

Pam smiled at Jim and hugged her day-glo orange penguin.

    

 

 

As Pam was driving Roy home, she glanced happily at the stuffed animal in the passenger seat. Jim had put a seat belt over it in case of an accident. “You know, Pam, 10 out of ever 12 car accidents result in a penguin’s death. That’s why all the orange ones are going extinct. Same thing happened with the dinosaurs.”

 

Roy’s snores from the backseat disrupted her reverie. She sighed. Roy was just a little boy at heart. Six rides on the zipper, five rides on both the orbiter and the kamikaze, four beers, three sausages, two reverse bungee jumps, and a tractor pull… that’s all he needed to be happy. It was sweet really.

 

 

 

 


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