The leaves are changing color, the earth’s crust is grinding, weather patterns resemble an unstable mental patient, CBS is firing more people than Donald Trump, and somewhere a small child is eating snack food that could survive the coming nuclear apocalypse: fried on a stick. Yep, winter’s here.

The theme was Mardi Gras 2004 at the Kern County Fair, but it didn’t feel like Mardi Gras. I left with the usual amount of enthusiasm and lack of money I do each year, but this year I took away something a little more poignant. My epiphany came in the form of a small anonymous child munching on a deep fried Twinkie.

At first glance I assumed this small brownish mass (the Twinkie) was a harmless corndog, lovingly served by some local Boy Scout troop. Nay, to my horror I looked from the object mounted a stick to a flashing sign proclaiming “Deep Fried Twinkies, Snickers, and Oreos!”

Now, some people see life changing sights in rock formations resembling the Virgin Mary, and then some see them in deep fried snack food so embedded with cholesterol it almost gives one a faux heart attack to stare upon. I was appalled. Let me clarify my position on this subject: I am not on an “I’m above eating Twinkies” high horse. I have consumed my fair share of nutritional suicide.

I trudged through the hay fever infested parking lot with a frown on my face and could not pinpoint why this was. Then it hit me. A deep fried Twinkie represents everything indulgent and absurd about this time of the year: the fair, the campaigning and realization that, for better or worse, summer is over. These carefree times are coming to an end to make way for the chillier, more serious months ahead.

The temperature is quite beautiful this particular two weeks of the year (approximate length of Bakersfield’s official fall season.) It reels one into believing we are all actually inhabitants of some cooler Northern Californian climate where the town motto is “Get Er’ Done.”

Yes, this is an alternate reality where children consume deep fried Twinkies and it is only 80 degrees Fahrenheit outside today. These times of the year are short-lived, because we, the same people who described our local weather three weeks ago as the ninth layer of hell, will be using the same obscenities while we are fighting for flu shots and grabbing our coats out of the closet in approximately two weeks. I repeat, in two weeks we will all be cold and fumbling to evolve thick layers of fur. On a more plausible note, thick layers of blubber might be more efficient due to the supply of deep fried Twinkies in our vicinity. Avoid whining, because things could be a lot worse. Case in point: Florida (just more validation God has a beef with senior citizens).