One weekend my brother came to town. We were considering things to do and saw a monster truck rally was happening at a nearby fair ground. And for the low price of $23, we could go see it. We did not hesitate to buy tickets.

Neither of us had been to a monster truck rally before, and we weren't really sure what to expect. I was a little worried I might be annoyed by the crowd, and when I arrived, it seemed my initial assessment was probably right.

We arrived about half an hour before the show started and found seats. We quickly learned we'd placed ourselves in front of an extremely drunk man. He had clearly been disarmed by security, as his various belt-based holsters were empty. He stood on the bleachers behind us, yelling responses to the emcee, who was babbling into a microphone, working to get the crowed rev'ed up. The emcee was located in a sky box on the other side of the arena and could in no way hear our seat companion. But, the emcee was getting what he wanted, at least from the guy behind us.

"How many of you are adults out there?" the emcee said.

The drunk man let out a scream.

"And do you adults know what makes monster truck racing even better?" the emcee continued.

"WHAT?" the drunk dude cried.

"BEER!"

At this, the guy let out a high pitched squeal of approval.

"Just remember, thank God for Ubers," the emcee said.

"NOT FOR ME," the drunk dude yelled. "I GOTTA MOTHER-IN-LAW."

I didn't turn to see if said mother-in-law was proud of her son-in-law, but I was pretty sure I knew the answer. When the national anthem played, the emcee told us to sing along, and our drunken friend attempted to do so, singing both so off-key and out of time, it was actually spectacular.

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But after that, the guy sat down and focused on the buisness at hand, watching some giant trucks drive over smashed cars. This is apparently a universal language, as everyone in the stands was riveted by the carnage before us.

The first truck came flying into the arena and launched into the air, going straight vertical before crashing onto its side. The crowd exploded into rip-roaring applause. The little kid in front of me waved his hands in total excitement, and I was right there with him. That was a huge truck and it crashed spectacularly. I was here for this.

After we saw some monster truck carnage, they stared something called the Tuff Truck race. This was apparently a race that involved "normal" cars. But really it was spray-painted, beater cars that one of the local tow companies repo'd, or whatever action lets tow companies keep cars, driving like total psychopaths over a dirt course involving jumps.

We watched a suburban with green and yellow stars spray painted across the windows mercilessly fuck up the whoop-de-doos (a technical term I learned from the emcee). The driver did not hit the whoop-de-doos at the correct speed and the suburban lunched off the first bump only to land like a free-falling suburban onto the top of the second bump. I watched the driver's helmeted head slam into the steering wheel.

"Good thing she disabled the airbags," the emcee cried. "Her head looks like a bowling ball on a broomstick. Someone call a chiropractor."

The crowd loved it.

The emcee's finest moment though was when he went into the dirt arena to interview the motorcyclist who was doing tricks off a seventy foot jump. We watched the motorcyclist and an ATV rider huck themselves off this jump, doing flips and twists in the air, before landing on an inflatable down ramp, which really killed their speed and cushioned their landing, and no doubt immensely increased the safety of the jump.

Seeing their jumps was impressive, specifically because I was watching this in-person and not on film. You could really see the physicality needed to maneuver the bike, and especially the quad, in air to complete the tricks. When the emcee met the motorcyclist at the base of the jump, the motorcyclist pulled off his helmet.

Now, after watching this guy perform Olympic-level athletics one-hundred feet in the air, I thought, just for a second, a Greek God was going to emerge from under that full face helmet.

Instead, a dirty brown mullet appeared, and I immediately knew the guy was probably named Seth.

"So," the emcee said, "this is the first time in two years I've seen you walking without a cane or a horrific limp..."

My brother and looked at each other.

"A horrific limp," my brother said.

"Can a monster truck emcee win a Pulitzer for hardest-hitting interview questions?" I said.

"...Yeah," Seth said, his southern twang very apparent. "You know, I had to bail at the bottom of that jump because I ran out of fuel, and then I broke my femur in half. It really messed me up for a while. But I'm back here today because you fine people deserve to be entertained. And that's why I'm here, to entertain you. So just remember, check your fuel, wear your helmet, and pray to God. You do that, and you can do anything."

The crowd roared, and Seth put his helmet back on and jumped on his bike. He and the quad rider then began tandem jumps.

The night ended with a monster truck spraying sparks out of his rear differential, the not so calming smells of burning rubber and plasticy chemicals coating the packed stands. But the truck did not light on fire. It delivered a rip-roaring, freestyle run, jumping over a van and performing a cyclone (another technical term) before timing out. The truck sputtered back to the staging area, and the crowd rose, rushing the exits. We joined the flow of people, eventually finding ourselves in the packed parking lot.

"I think that was worth more than $23," my brother said narrowly avoiding getting hit by both a Jeep and baby carriage at the same time. "I did not expect it to be that good."

Kids ran all around us. Drunk adults shouted after them. People hit the panic buttons on their cars, and the discordant yells of car alarms added to the cacophony of crying kids and tired adults. Eventually, we made it to our car.

Inside the mercifully quiet vehicle, I said, "Just remember, check your fuel, wear your helmet, and pray to God, and maybe, just maybe, we'll get out of this parking lot alive."

And with that, we buckled our seatbelts and merged into the sea of brake lights and screaming children.