The Great Minnesota Get-Together is something like a crowded subway car—mixed with the comfort of being among a great mass of your fellow man is the sublime realization that things could always be worse for you, no matter who you are. Feeling lousy about your beer gut? Head to the Beer Garden and have the term radically redefined. Feeling guilty about the winter pounds you haven't shaken during the summer months? Head to the line at Sweet Martha's and sigh in relief. There's no sense in acting like the State Fair isn't an exercise in mass schadenfreude. On the contrary—the fair is all about indulging the vices we share and being united by them. So look and judge, Twin Cities—walk away with a bigger head, and know that no matter who you are or what you've suffered, a stroll through the freak show can always make everything seem, at least for the moment, survivable.