When I was in college I briefly dated a girl that was rather well-off and a bit on the prissy/snobby side. (Not sure what she saw in me.) It was late spring and a group of us decided to drive to a neighboring county for their fair/farm show. When I went to pick up Lisa, I thought she looked nice but a bit overdone for a day in the country. She was dressed more for a day at the country club. She had on a pastel/powder blue sleeveless blouse, a knee length white skirt, white pom-pom socks with the pom-pom the exact shade of blue as her blouse and a brand new pair of the uber-preppy white canvas Tretorn sneakers. She even had her hair pulled back with a ribbon that matched her blouse. After complimenting her, I suggested that she may want to change into something more casual given where we were going. She didn't want to hear it claiming that it was a beautiful day and she wanted to wear her new outfit. Besides, she said, she was only going there to walk around; not to work or 'slop the hogs.' I knew when to stop and let it go. We all got in the car and drove the 45 minutes to the fair.

Pulling into the parking lot, we noticed some downed trees due to the week's storms. Lisa insisted we park in the paved "pay" lot so that she didn't have to walk too far. Because of where we parked, there was a separate entrance for us to use. The entrance was a cattle-shoot design with the side of a barn down one side and a wooden stick fence along the other. As we approached the entrance area, Lisa made a sarcastic remark about two girls that we passed going the other way wearing cut-off denim shorts and cowboy boots saying something about them looking like real hicks. When we got to the beginning of the entrance area, Lisa abruptly stopped and focused on the ground. It must have been a low-lying area and from the recent rain the ground started as soggy grass, turned into muddy grass and the last 8-10 feet was pure mud. In an attempt at humor, I said something to Lisa about her pretty, designer sneakers about to get dirty and she found nothing at all funny about it. I would have offered to carry her but there was a line that we had to wait in and I couldn't hold her that long.

The others in our group didn't really care about the muck as they were wearing old running and hiking-style shoes. Lisa then had a brainstorm. She decided that she could avoid the disgusting mud by stepping on the bottom rung of the wooden fence and could shimmy down the entrance line safely above the mud and remain blemish-free. As the line moved forward, she slid along the fence with her hands gripping the top rail and her fresh-out-of-the-box-that-morning tennis shoes on the bottom rung only a few inches above the muck. She also made sure to not rub the fence with the front of her white skirt. We all kind of thought her determination to stay clean was funny but didn't give her too much of a hard time about it.

As we neared the front of the line, Lisa peered into the fair area and happily announced that the walkways were paved thus making this a good day. Not more than a few seconds after she uttered those words, she stepped to one of the final segments in the fence. The top rail she was holding onto lifted up out of its place causing her to lurch backwards. All in the matter of a moment, she let out an "Ohohhhohhhhhh!" followed by "Nonooooonoooooo!" She tried to grab something to keep herself from falling but to no avail. Lisa tumbled back off the fence landing on her backside in a few inches of wet, brown mud. She briefly laid on her back with her mouth wide open with nothing coming out. When she could speak, she yelled, "oh my god.oh my godlook at me." And that's what we were doing: looking at her. She had mud everywhere in her hair (and hair ribbon), down her entire back, all over her white skirt and all over (and in) her white sneakers, including the pom-pom socks.

I helped her to her feet with her slipping and sliding in the slop. She announced to our group that we had to leave but everyone else said "no" so she spent the balance of the day walking around the fair looking worse than any of the country/hick girls that we came across. She was incredibly miserable the rest of the day and needless to say, that was our last date.