People watching...

People watching is a wonderful activity, but you people are freaks.


I was lucky enough to sit at the Coast News booth during the Encinitas Street Fair. I sat there with the intrepid Jean Gillette of "Small Talk" fame and a couple other fine scholars that the Coast News employs. We all spent a few hours trying to get passers by to fill out surveys about our local papered blog.

What started out as a simple grass roots fact finding mission for the newspaper became a people watching event of mythic proportions. And that was only after two hours.

My attention was initially sparked with the amount of grubby people that were walking around without shoes on. Shabby hippies that reeked of patchouli and parental disappointment. I was starting to think that a small percentage of people living in Encinitas were born in a barn.

I’ll admit, I wear my slippers in public, but the thought of walking around without shoes on is just repulsive. Dodging spilled drinks, toppled funnel cake swirlies, and roughly ten million stinky dog bombs dropped on the 101 is not the proper arena to shed your shoes. Nasty...

Then a nice lady was talking with us about some local piece of news that she liked (we’re much more patient when given compliments) when I noticed that she had a large slash of chocolate across the right side of her chin. Apparently the idea of having to eat chocolate-covered strawberries and talk was too tough a task. I didn’t bother telling her either because she was on a roll, and like I said...we like compliments.

Even though the weather was overcast and a tad on the chilly side, there were clearly muffin tops as far as my sad eyes could see. A vast ocean of belly and back fat cascading over the top of jeans that wouldn’t have fit these women in high school.

Please, stop wearing tight jeans and cropped shirts. We don’t want to see your Grateful Dead tattoo anymore. After fifteen years, it looks like someone set those poor stoned bears on fire and used a baseball bat to douse the flames.

I’m so tired of seeing Mom’s dressed like their daughters and daughter’s dressed like their for sale. Have a little self-respect. There were children present. And I have eyes.

Speaking of children, I was curious... when are people not related to a child allowed to punt them? I’m not sure of the legalities just yet, but I’m pretty sure if a kid is a whiny little twit and the parents don’t attempt to rectify said brattiness, we as a society are allowed to drop kick them into the ocean. Just a thought.


Then to top it all off, there was a bright orange electrical cord near our booth that seem to attract those with three left feet. Instead of just leaving the little orange wire, they put a large black plastic piece over it as a "safety" precaution. I wish I was a lawyer...

I was sitting there with another employee marking down how many people tripped over the black plastic precautionary device.

Final tally: 60+ in less than three hours.

Another street fair comes to a close in our little hamlet, and Encinitas has once again been proven to be the eclectic dwelling of ethnic, cultural, and socio-political melting pot that it’s known for.

Now if only we could get deep fried Twinkies like those rich bastards in Del Mar...