I was walking down Summer St. toward downtown crossing today during my lunch break, with my sights set on eating a hot dog on the common for lunch, when I heard an odd strain of music. Not odd like the crackling boombox of the hobo in front of Wendy’s who doesn’t wear shoes, but odd, like, well, a smooth jazz version of “Amazing Grace”, with a graceful transition into “Fly Me To the Moon” being played by a 6 piece band who are all crammed onto a flat, compact-car-sized trailer which is still hooked up to the pickup which towed it there and propped up underneath with an uneven stack of pieces of two-by-fours and plywood in a half-assed attempt to create a stage for The Shittiest Street Fair Ever.

In fact, that is exactly what I heard.

Passing a pair of blue City of Boston Police barricades with an 8.5×11 paper flyer hastily taped to the center of each and entering the blocked off section of Arch St., my initial excitement over the hope of eating something fried out of a quickly saturating and nearly transparent with grease paper bowl vanished almost immediately. What looked at first like a bustling crowd of enthusiastic fair-goers I soon identified as a single complex queue snaking its way across the street emanating from one of the fair’s two food vendors, which appeared to be, and in fact were, two hot dog carts pushed next to each other. To be explicit, as used here “hot dog cart” is meant in the absolute strictest sense of the phrase: they were carts; they sold hot dogs. Period.

Across the street from this expert caterer was an old man beckoning people towards the fair’s one and only carnival-style game. Imagine, in your mind’s eye, a carnival milk bottle game. Six bottles stacked precariously upon one another, an expert huckster, possibly with a cane, leaning out of a garishly painted booth, lights flashing, daring you to test your skill, enticing you with oversized stuffed animals that you will regret winning the moment you try to fit it in the car. Got it? Good. This was just like that, except that it was an old guy on a lawn chair, cat-napping next to a card table, upon which was a stack of cans (the 64oz kind that crushed tomatoes come in (and in this case may still well have been in) and a 3-panel high-school diorama board as a backstop. I didn’t see any prizes.

Further along was a number of other unvisited tables. One looked like a silent auction for the ugliest afghan I’ve ever seen, an old wall clock, and a cheap looking lamp with a yellowing shade. Most just appeared to have flyers for this or that church program with old women or men in friar’s robes sitting unenthusiastically behind, half-hoping that no one would stop to ask a question. One such table caught my eye as I walked past. Now, I didn’t stop — I didn’t even palm a flyer as I made my way past the hot dog vendor’s unreasonably long line — so I can’t be positive, but one table appeared to be for a children’s program (or possibly children’s forced labor camp, or children’s midnight death cult) called THE LAZARUS PROJECT. Spooky.
The single most popular table by far was the balloon table. Not balloon-animals. Just plain, single color, round balloons.

Rounding out this gala event, halfway down the block (leaving the other half of the closed down block completely barren), was a Dunkin’ Donuts mobile. I have never seen such a thing before, and I hope to never see one again, but there it was: a gaudy blue behemoth painted on all sides with a cacophony of corporate logos and logomarks, trademarked slogans, and larger-than-life confectionery, towering over the not-so-long-as-the-hot-dog-cart-but-still-way-too-long-considering-the-kinds-of-things-it-sells line, and proudly serving a pair of eclairs to the severely overweight girl wearing the t-shirt that said in sparkly gold letters, I kid you not: “Yes, I have a boyfriend, but I’m looking to upgrade.” I shudder to think what the product of this mobile caffeine and sugar machine would have tasted like, given the high quality product created when Dunkin Donuts employees have the luxury of a full kitchen and adequate refrigeration.

Taking all of this in, I dejectedly continued on with my original plan. It didn’t hit me until I was at Washington Street what the real reason the fair seemed so empty and joyless: there wasn’t even any instant bingo.