Monster Truck Rally

You know, sometimes being a hick is fun. Six months ago Sarah and I went to the demolition derby at a county fair. This derby was located just ten miles out of Columbus, a city of two million people, but of the 35 entries in the derby, only two or three were from Columubus. Everyone else was from a Hickville, OH.

And that's why when we heard of this opportunity for the Monster Truck Rally, the Meachams were stoked.

But when we got there it was kind of a shock. Sarah had told me I was going to need ear plugs. I had initially thought she was being overly cautious in the normal Sarah soon-to-be-mother type of way, but she wasn't pulling my chain. With the deafening growl of the engines and the annoyingly shrill microphone of the emcee designed to penetrate the stoutest of ear plugs, my head and ears hurt despite my earplugs and two hands squeezing to attempt to create a tight seal around my ears. As a future ENT, I could just imagine the cochlear hair cells getting fried in my inner ear. As a future father, my instict was to take off my coat and wrap it around Sarah's belly to save the hearing of my cute little fetus.

Perhaps the best part about the event was the people watching. From across the arena I could spot a thirty something year old with a mullet and beer belly standing up and waving his arms around his head as one of the trucks jumped. In the row in front of us a father had purchased for his son some earplugs that were shaped as oversized monster truck tires; the tires were squishing this poor kid's face, but he kept them on only because he thought he looked cool.

It's experiences like these that let me know that it was the right thing for me to come to Ohio. Oddities abound everywhere. Finally, a place where I belong.