I was hungry at the Ethnic Enrichment Festival…

​…and it’s my own damn fault.

A friend and I went to the annual festival celebrating Kansas City’s cultural diversity through music, food and imported gift items. We stopped by the festival, held at Swope Park, on the last day — Sunday afternoon — and it was very hot, but the festival wasn’t uncomfortably jam-packed. There were, however lines at every food booth. Not the “I’ll be standing here in the heat for 30 minutes!” kind of lines, but long enough that I lost interest in every cuisine even before I got close to any of the windows. I did make it up to the front of the line at the Lithuanian booth and almost bought a beautiful, plastic-wrapped loaf of whole-wheat bread that was so heavy, it could conceivably be used as a murder weapon. “It slices so easily,” the lovely lady at the window informed me, “so it makes wonderful sandwiches.”

I’m sure that was true, but the very idea of making a sandwich — let alone a wonderful sandwich — was so exhausting, I changed my mind and went looking for an icy Bomb Pop, which — considering the tensions in Pyongyang — I was sure would be sold in the Korean booth — but wasn’t.