Saturday January 28th was not just any Saturday. Oh no, it was Women’s Expo Saturday. To all the Manly Man Dudes scoffing right now, go ahead and be jackasses and poke fun at it, I don’t care. To Hell with the whole lot of ya, you don’t know what you’re missing. You wouldn’t know a good time if it stood up and gassed right in your face.

It’s truly the shit. I was hooked the first time I went quite a few years back and have made a point of it to go back since. To those of you who have never been, it’s basically a big auditorium filled with booths of people pimping various products and services. The best part, however, is the free samples, which there are many of.

Take last year for example: I actually had to go to the car to empty our stash bags out and make room for more. It gets heavy carrying around all of that free shit you get. Vitamin gumballs, various trial size samples of shampoos, soaps, and other topically applied bodily toxins.. foods, detergents, coupons, cereal, oh my. And that’s only the stuff you take home. There’s also copious amounts of ready-to-eat samples of cake, soup, salad, cheeses, meats, juice, ice cream, candy you name it, its there. Be sure to bring your appetite I’d always tell people.

Basically you’re paying $10-15 to gorge yourself like a little piggy on a million different foods, get at least a pillow case full’s worth of take-home booty, and be surrounded by hundreds of glorious womens (with the occasional grumpy bored husband that was dragged along and doesnt know what a good time is.) The first year I went I was all like Hellllllll yes, sign me up for the next 10 years please! If a bomb were to ever drop, I thought to myself, this is the place I’d want to be. These things are like a People Watcher’s wet dream. You ain’t seen nothin’ till you’ve been in a mile long line for free Nestle Drumsticks watching people impetuously elbow one other as the hander-outers repeatedly exclaim “One per person!” like trained monkeys. Muthafukkin’ Survival of the Fittest to the extreme; that’s right.

One year we even caught a Rick Springfield concert as a special Women’s Expo extra, and let me tell you. There’s nothing like watching Rick smash a dozen roses on his guitar to the delight and amusement of hundreds of screaming, ravishing ladies. Rick still got it goin on.

So last week my seester Lisa, who was taking her daughter to be initiated into her first ever Womens Expo experience called and invited me along. Needless to say I was in like Liza Minnelli at some pretentious washed up asshole celebrity wedding with an open bar: I pretty much said “Yes!” before she was even done asking.

Saturday morning 9:30am

Lisa and my lovely niece Deb picked me up from my weekend morning coffee/book ritual at my preferred local caffeine emporium. I had just sucked back one of the best iced mochas ever and made sure to do my bag carrying stretches, frothing at the mouth in anticipation over being part of yet another one of these freak shows. By golly, I was frothing so feverishly it looked as if someone had just fed me a box of Alka Seltzer.

And off we went to the Minneapplesauce Convention Center for our Girls Day Out. One $9 parking ramp tab and 4 block walk later, there it was: Women’s Expo 2006. Right through the gates we each nabbed a lovely red Channel 5 News window scraper which we dropped into our red Channel 5 News bags. We shook the bags a little to make sure they hit bottom, making room for the stash to come.

Such a magnificent bounty awaited us. Such anticipation. Such splendor. All under one convention center dome-shaped roof. And Hell if anyone was going to get in my way this year at the Fruit Stripes booth. Oh no. I was ready to fight, and I was going to fight hard for my free stuff. It’s the crux of what this fine country of ours was built on: Freedom and the willingness to fight for it.

Channel 5 Bags in hand, we all moved forward.

To be continued. Please tune in back to http://www.meatsmoothie.blogspot.com/ over the next few days for the exciting Women’s Expo 2006 conclusion. (Cliffhanger blawg format inspired by Debbie Cakes)