"Better than they should be"

This past Tuesday I had the extreme honor of visiting the Cleveland County Fair.  Our group included a Spaniard, a Frenchwoman, two South Americans, a Northerner, an Arkansan, and one (essentially) North Carolinian native.  To say that we were quite a spectacular conglomeration of cultural diversity would not even explain half of the amusement that came from our group.  I already tend to feel a smidge out of my element in traditionally southern experiences (though fairs in and of themselves are not a new experience, southern fairs are in fact different than northern ones), the TA's with whom we ventured were completely shocked and ecstatic.  They came ready with cash to try all the fried foods (that they later promised to work off in the gym for 3 hours and by not consuming any sweets or fried foods for at least a week in attempts to restore their physical well-being).  Between the four of them, they consumed: fries, cheese fries, hush puppies, chocolate-covered cheesecake on a stick, and 6 fried Oreos.  Their faces upon seeing the enormous turkey legs walking around were priceless (and if I stop to think about how those turkey legs got that big in the first place, my face is probably fairly similar).  But nothing makes one stop and reconsider the foods your culture promotes more than the fact that they are foods 4 differing societies would never contemplate normalizing!  I didn't think twice about splitting an ice cream topped, apple dumpling fried to yummy perfection, fair food.  Or about the sugar in the orangeade I drank.  Consuming these did not stop me from eating sweets in the subsequent days and I certainly did not spend my life in the gym with remorse.  But the TA's did indeed admit that the foods were good and that the Oreos were "better than they should be" and they truly shouldn't be "allowed to be this good" (though the heart-attack that they felt looming over them post-consumption still didn't seem to dampen their enthusiasm).  But the south is quite notorious for deep frying every blessed thing (even Kool-aid) and this fact was not lost on our friends who questioned whether or not "fried water" would appear next year.  Such excitement and fun that comes with watching others consume the foods you are thankful are not a regular part of your diet, until you realize that there are foods far too similar that we do indeed eat with far too much frequency.  C'est la vie, at least here in America!