By Mark David Blum, Esq.

What fun is a Fair without some applied science and experiment. A year or so ago, the question became at twenty five cents a cup, how much was State Fair milk on a per gallon basis. The answer was $7.00.

This year my experiment took on a more somber tone. Note I used “somber” and not “sober”. The Fair Intelligencia placed the Wine tent right next to a large beer tent and turned on the taps. Unable to resist, it became a goal to compare and contrast lift under the Big Top. I became curious about the differences, if any, between beer drinkers and wine drinkers. Besides, a little compare and contrast is good for the soul,

Easily finding a table in the wine tent which gave me a good view of both scenes, I sat and drank and delicious bottle of Swedish Hill Cabernet. (Yes, if handled right, you can drink a bottle right there at your table). I found the wine to be smooth at the start and left little aftertaste. If you have a chance, taste one.

So there I sat, drinking slowly at my bottle, and watched the world go by. It took about an hour but in that time I managed to come up with the following observations about beer and wine drinkers.

Beer music is rock n roll. With the beat and Led Zeppelin attitude, the music in the beer tent won hands down. In the wine tent, there was a quiet jazz playing in the background.

But then again, wine drinkers tend to be more focused on quality than quantity. The wine tent was larger with several winery vendors. The beer tent was smaller and just said BEER. Us snooty wine drinkers search out taste whereas beer drinkers just want the buzz.

Though larger, the wine tent had 1/3 of the seating available. It appeared that in the beer tent, folks bought their beverage and sat around talking. Winos bought their beverage and ordered it picked up when they left the fair. Notably is that despite rumors, you can take cups of regular wine and wine slushies out of the wine tent. Since there are about 5 glasses of wine per bottle; you pay the outrageous per glass fee or share bottle with friends and all ya’all go walking. But yet, you can go out of the area with wine or slushies.

So whereas in the BEER tent, folks was sittin around talking and voicing their thoughts on Joe Biden’s recent appointment, wine folks shopped and left. In fact, some of the wine tables were occupied by beer drinkers and most times someone with a beer came into the wine tent, it was to accompany someone who wanted to buy a slushie … and then leave. Having given the situation a good once over, I stumbled to the men’s room. While standing and pondering future science experiments and reading the newspaper on the wall over the urinal, I had not noticed that not a drop of pee made it into the urinal. As I postulated life’s challenges, I managed to fail the challenge of pissing in the bowl – completely.

I got out of there quick and decided to try the experiment again at night. Already having absorbed the ambience of the afternoon alcoholics, it was time to greet the night. Too bad it is that I just couldn’t skip all that harmful drugs and just smoke a joint.

As for my next science experiment, I am going to determine the caloric intake of the Fair. I need the total calories consumed divided by the number of Fairgoers. Can you imagine for a moment the entire caloric intake for the Fair. Scarier still is how that number is not even close to the ten billion dollar national debt.