You’ve read my blog about the one and only time I went to the fair with my brother. If you haven’t, I’ll leave the link to that little gem here.

https://www.lauracambymccaskill.com/blog/the-chain-saw

Moving right along. It was this very same outing, that I met the Texan.

We (my brother and I) were standing in line for the rock-climbing wall, bickering back and forth about if I could make it to the top. My brother didn’t think I could, I on the other hand, knew I could. Plus, if you reached the top, you got this cute little teddy bear. It was as good as mine. My side of the wall cleared up first, I passed the gate and stepped onto the mat. My brother watched on from the gate.

The person that stood there on the mat waiting for me, was literally the person that had my fate in their hands. If they hooked the harness up wrong, missed a belt or buckle, I’d fall and get hurt. Or worse.

As I walked towards him, the first thing that stood out to me was the fact that he was a red head. The second was that he was either my age or older. I couldn’t tell. When I reached him, he placed the harness on the ground in front of me.

“Go ahead and step into this,” he told me.

I did. He pulled the harness up to my waist and began to click and buckle everything in place.

“Have you done this before,” he asked.

“Yeah, I’ve done this in the past.”

“Good, then you know what to do,” he said.

“Yep.”

They don’t call me Chatty Kathy for a reason.

Me being the antisocial butterfly that I was (am), I looked away from him when he moved closer to me to hook the harness over my shoulders. I had a bubble and he was in it.

It’s always so loud at the fair, people have to scream to hear each other. I wasn’t sure if he had gotten that close to me because he needed to see the harness or to make sure I heard him, but I continued to look away. I glanced over to see my brother leaning on the fence watching me, waiting for me to fall off this wall in a few minutes.

The guy was pulling the last strap tight when he spoke, “I like your accent.”

Now I’m not sure what type of reaction he was going for but for whatever reason, I got all kinds of offended. Before I could stop it, the next words out of my mouth took me back to my roots. All the way to my roots.

“Accent,” I spit, turning to him, “I ain’t got no accent.”

I shutter to this day thinking about it. So, hush.

He smiled at me, “Really?”

“Yeah, really,” I countered, “Besides, you sound just like me!”

“Do I?”

His smile and tone was kind of making me mad, was he making fun of me? Cool thing about me, the madder I am, the thicker my accent gets. Not that I have one, clearly.

“Yeah, ya do. Where are you even from?”

Where are you even from—someone, please make it stop. Just shut your mouth Laura.

He laughed—LAUGHED!

“I’m from Texas.”

“Well you sound like you’re from North Carolina to me.”

Why am I even this mad?

He held his hand out for me to move to the wall. At this point, my brother was there getting suited up for the wall beside me. He had missed the entire encounter.

I was getting ready to start climbing when he patted one of the lower foot holds, “You could start out with this one.”

My face. I couldn’t help it. I had just told the man I had done this before; did the thick accented North Carolinian look or sound like she needed a help? Don’t answer that.

Why am I so upset!

He chuckled again and took a step back, “Have fun guys.”

I turned back to the wall to concentrate. I had to beat my brother in this race, I didn’t have time to be messing with anyone else. I was about three or four foot holds up when he called out to me again, “Make sure you hit the buzzer at the top.”

Sir, I will take my shoe off and throw it at you. I KNOW HOW THIS WORKS.

I reached the top right about the time my brother did, I don’t think he hit the buzzer, but I did. I had MADE IT TO THE TOP, and I wanted him to know it. Unfortunately, when I pressed the buzzer, it didn’t go off. I pressed it again, but the buzzer didn’t make a sound.

“Press it!”

The Texan was yelling at me from the ground. I AM! Your stupid buzzer is broke, and I will throw both of my shoes at you. Before I could press it a third time, I lost my footing and fell. Of course, the rope caught me, and I glided down like everyone else. I heard the Texan’s, “Aw!” from down below.

Are you kidding me right now? Don’t judge me, after you stood down there and yelled at me. When I reached the bottom, the Texan was there waiting to unhook me.

“You did good,” he told me.

“Thanks.”

I had wanted that teddy bear, small as it was. But, I couldn’t wait to get out of there and rub it in my brother’s face that I had reached the top. Something he said I couldn’t do. I glanced over at him to throw him a cocky, ‘ha, I did it’ look, but he wasn’t looking. When I turned back around, the Texan was standing if front of me, which made me kind of jolt backwards. I can’t deal with people in my bubble. He reached up to pull the top part of the harness loose and pulled me a little closer than I thought we should be. For real though. I felt my eyebrows furrow as I turned my head in the other direction.

“I tell you what,” he said looking up from the harness, “If you come back tonight, I’ll let you in for free.”

Uh—Sir, why are we so close?

“Um—thanks,” I managed.

As awkward as it was, I contemplated it. The climbing wall was something I enjoyed doing. He released me from the harness, and I stepped out. I was halfway to the gate when I heard him.

“Hey!”

I turned around to see him trotting towards me. What now?

“Even though you didn’t ring the buzzer, I saw you reach the top,” he said holding out a small teddy bear.

Y’ALL.

“Oh my gosh, thanks,” I replied, stunned.

YEARS later, at a random place and time, that moment popped into my head. It was then I realized what was happening that night. Yeah, I know, I’m blonde. Hush.

I know what you’re wondering. Did I go back that night? The answer is no, I didn’t. Right after we left the climbing wall, my brother got me on that stupid ride that almost killed me. I suggest you click the link to find out what I’m talking about, if you don’t already know. And we left shortly after that.

I’d like to take this time out to formally apologize to that red headed Texan that worked at the North Carolina state fair in 2005. The blonde, thick accented North Carolinian, didn’t pick up what you were laying down.

​Dodged a bullet there, didn’t you?

I was standing in line to check out when I noticed two teen boys were working the register. They were about my age at the time. Like most teens, they were joking and carrying on while they worked. Most people ignored them, and some laughed. They weren’t being ridiculous with their laughter; besides, I had been on shifts where you just needed some laughter. I couldn’t blame them.

There were two people in front of me, the boys were turning out costumers quickly despite goofing off. I’m not sure what it was, but the closer I got, the more annoyed I became. I couldn’t actually hear what they were saying but the way one of the them held himself, I could tell, I was going to have a problem.

I was next in line; the boys were ringing up an elderly lady. I could now hear the boys conversation. The one doing the bagging was joking around but it was almost the type of joking around that was cut downs disguised as a joke. I cannot stand that.

The boy hit on the elderly woman, told her she was pretty and asked for a date, which she loved. I just let it go. It made her day. She picked up her bags and left. I caught a glimpse of cashier as he rang my belongings through; I could tell he thought the other guy was going to far with the jokes. I can’t remember what his friend said to me at first, but I politely smiled and watched as my groceries were being scanned. When he saw that I wasn’t going to bite, he turned his attention to the cashier.

They did some funny banter back and forth, but it was beginning to become silly schoolboy humor. I could feel my eye start to twitch. The cashier was also trying to see his way out of the conversation but to no avail. The bagger was now commenting on how hot he was. Then he went into how smart he was, dang near a genius, if you asked him. The cashier laughed through the uncomfortable conversation.

The thought crossed my mind that someone should put this guy in his place; he was making people or at least the cashier and me uncomfortable. Before I could finish my thought, this guy started singing. I can’t remember what he belted out; it was just a verse. I was baffled as to how we went from him being the best thing since sliced bread to him being the lead role in a musical, but there we were.

Why did I even go out? Just curious, does anyone else have this much trouble when you go out into public or is it just me?

The cashier was just as surprised as I was, but he was nice about it.

“Wow,” the cashier said, “That was really good.”

It was. I can’t say that it wasn’t. Without missing a beat, the guy turned around with a smile, “Yeah dude, I’m pretty good. I’ve been practicing. Hooked on Phonics works for me!”

I felt my jaw drop. What does that have to do with anything--

I looked up just in time to see him nod towards me and smile. He just knew he had impressed me.

​Yeah, okay Romeo, you might want to look at those lessons plans again, singing isn’t in them. 

I was sitting at my kitchen table, deep in the middle of writing a blog piece for you guys, when T called. She was headed somewhere, I can’t remember where, and was asking for some help with her GPS. Something had gone wrong and the GPS wasn’t working. She asked me to use my phone to figure it out while she drove; to make sure she didn’t miss her exit. No pressure.

I put her on speaker phone and pulled up my GPS to see if I could walk her through getting her GPS back up and running.

She was talking about this trip and how she didn’t know how to get there, as I flipped through the options on the GPS app. She was asking me questions on how to figure it out before she came up on her exit, which was close. I was beginning to get worried she’d miss it. As the exit was coming into view, she began asking more questions.

Queue in the squirrel on the front porch. This little rascal had been terrorizing my dogs (who, for some reason, had decided that squirrels offended their honor), for weeks now. So, as I’m answering T’s questions, flipping through the app options, and silently freaking out; the dogs spot the squirrel.

You would have thought the entire FBI/SWAT team was raiding my house the way these two dogs hit my glass door. Barking, crying, growling, scratching. It’s a good thing I knew they had been rabies vaccinated, or I would have thought twice before approaching them.

“Be quiet,” I called.

I don’t know why I even wasted my breath. They couldn’t hear me. This squirrel decided to sit right in from of them on the porch, staring at them as if you say, ‘You can’t get me—na, na, na, na, na.’

That didn’t help matters, I was waiting for them to crash through the glass door. I didn’t think they could get any louder, I was wrong.

T asked me something, but I couldn’t hear it. Exit approaching.

“What,” I shouted.

She asked again, still couldn’t hear her. My door was about to cave in.

“What!”

When she asked a third time, all I could hear was something about an exit. I stood up from the table and shouted as loud as I could, “SHUT UP AND LAY DOWN!”

I yelled so loud, it echoed in the kitchen. I felt like that ‘crazy’ mom. Rescue mom, that is. Both dogs stopped barking and turned around. They looked at me, as if to say, “What’s wrong with you? Why are you yelling?”

Even the SQUIRREL outside the door stood up and looked at me like, “You need to relax, lady.”

Both dogs walked away from the door, the squirrel turned and scurried off the porch. In the now dead silence, I turned back to my phone.

“Are you still there?”

Nothing. Did she miss the exit? Lose signal? Wreck?

“Hello?”

After another moment of silence, T’s voice came through the speaker phone.

“I just pulled over and crawled into my back seat.”

“What—oh, you’re funny.”

​Try to help some people and all you get is sarcasm. She has been hanging around me too long.  

We had all gathered at a local parking lot to watch the Fourth of July fireworks show. The parking lot was packed. Car after car as far as the eye could see. The parking lot belonged to a grocery store; we watched as people ran in and out grabbing things they needed before the show. We had to arrive early to get a spot.

I had brought a few of the kids from our church group; my family was there too. People pulled out their fold out chairs and sat behind their vehicles, sipping on a soda, or eating some chips. Kids ran around the parking lot blowing bubbles or squirting each other with water guns. My mom and dad had planted themselves in two fold-out chairs and were eating the sandwiches we had brought.

It was still daylight, but some people began to light up some 'good ol’ fourth' that they had brought themselves. Nothing fancy (as it’s illegal to have the ‘good stuff’ in NC), just some sparklers and smoke bombs. A few kids ran by throwing poppers.

I had planted myself on the trunk of my car, watching all of this unfold. I was sipping on a soda myself. I had two kids on my lap, one was two and the other was five. My youngest niece sat beside me, she was in her teens, and my nephew was on the other side; he was also in his teens.

Someone behind us in the next isle began to set off the firecrackers on the string. I remember the sound they made as each individual firecracker exploded. After the entire string had exploded, I heard, “Go get the sparklers.”

The next thing I know, there was a sound I couldn’t quite place. The sound it made reminded me of when you shake a soda and it fizzes over. That sound was followed by three loud thuds. Those ‘thuds’ came from my car--

I was turning around to figure out what that sound was, when something shot through my long hair, just missing my neck, past me, into the crowd. It all happened so fast; I didn’t have time to process what I had just witnessed.  I managed to follow the flowing light into the cars in front of me, where it then exploded, sending darts of fire in all directions. Towards us, towards others in the crowd, bouncing off vehicles, tents, chairs. People darted in every direction, screaming, and knocking things over. More waves of fire followed.

How I managed to shove both my niece and nephew off the car and then tuck and roll with the two little ones off the back of my car, I have no idea.

“Move,” was the only thing I could think to scream before I shoved everyone overboard.

The pavement wasn’t very forgiving, but it was more forgiving than the darts of flames that were now bouncing off my car. Don’t worry, the kids landed on top of me—not under me.

Although an individual fire work doesn’t really last that long, it felt like an eternity. When the smoke finally cleared, a guy ran up past my car. He seemed shocked and almost hysterical. Get in line, bud. We made eye contact when I stood up, brushing the kids off.

“Are you alright,” he asked. He seemed genuinely worried and upset.

“Yeah,” I answered as the kids ran off to go play somewhere else.

I glanced back at my car to find several dark spots from where this thing bounced off my car several times before it whizzed past me.

“I thought it was a glow stick,” he cried, looking over the damage.

A glow stick--

“That was a roman candle,” I told him.

He still seemed shocked that he had mixed them up.

Those are illegal! How did you even—you know what, never mind.

Happy National, give-fireworks-to-people-you-wouldn’t-trust-with-a-glow-stick day!