“Are you f***ing serious?”

I don’t know how many times I said those four words while I was at the royal show on Friday.

It’s always been an expensive day out but holy moly this year you needed Saudi oil money to have a good time.

I say this with love because I adore going to the show and always have.

I love the smell (a heady mix of fried fat, manure and vape).

I love the sights (teenagers trying not to chunder on the second loop of a ride that hasn’t seen a torque wrench in two decades).

I love the sounds (bogans screaming at their kids over the top of carnies using megaphones to promote games of “skill” that are so obviously rigged you may as well hand your BSB and account number before you try).

I love the daggy pavilions, enjoy admiring the cows and could spend hours inspecting the works of champion woodworkers, iron-mongers, book-binders and bakers (if ever a woman named Isabella Scurria invites you over for afternoon tea make sure you go because her scones looked like they were to die for).

This year’s dog-jumping show, which saw a young German Shepherd named Pocket (surname Rocket) clear close to 2.4m was electrifying to watch.

But my goodness the experience stings the hip pocket.

It starts before you even get through the gate. Homeowners close to the showground were charging $35 to park on their verges. They jacked up the price by $10 in a year!

One bloke’s front yard looked like John Hughes’ showroom in Victoria Park.

This is nothing short of a cartel. I am seriously considering lodging a complaint with the ACCC. They don’t even own the bloody grass; it’s council property!

An entry price of $57? That’s twice as much as you pay to get into Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, which is one of the world’s greatest theme parks.

If I spent $57 at Bunnings I’d walk out with a cordless hammer drill and two bags of potting mix; spend it at the show and you walk out with COVID and diabetes.

I couldn’t see one ride that was less than $15. That’s $30 for two kids to go on the bloody ghost train!

You know how long that ride went for? Less than 80 seconds!

Jesus wept, there are narco-barons in Colombia who don’t have that kind of cash flow.

A Dagwood dog was $13. What the hell is that about?

A Dagwood dog consists of unmentionable parts of animals you’ve never heard of blended with sawdust from the cattle pavilion. They’re so devoid of nutritional value they make a Chicko Roll look like an apple.

Deep-fried lips and arseholes for $13?

My God, you don’t ever own a Dagwood; you rent it. It stays in the human body for a maximum of 10 minutes before making its way at speed to the nearest orifice.

The “gourmet” burger next to it in the bain-marie was $22. They were stretching the definition of that adjective because the only thing between the buns apart from an over-cooked patty was a piece of lettuce that looked like it had been there for a week.

Fairy floss for $10? For the love of God, 99 per cent of it is air!

The cost of food clearly wasn’t putting anyone off because the average body mass index of a show attendee is about 60.

I saw one salad-dodger win a raffle with the number 48D. It could have been his bra size.

The day before I went a colleague saw people so fat they were getting around the place on gophers intended for the elderly.

And they were pulling their kids in those little trolleys you usually take on a picnic or to the beach!

Why is it that the people who most obviously have little cash are the ones spending so much of it?

Where does the money come from? Hang on, I know: my taxes.

Half of them had their bloody NDIS carers with them. How much did that cost me?

If you drive to the show in a 1987 Holden Camira you should not be spending $400 on show bags.

You should be spending the money on Ozempic.

And am I the only person left in WA who doesn’t have a neck tattoo?

If I had a dollar for every time I saw some bikie associate eating a chip on a stick and yelling at a kid with a rat’s tail I could have afforded to actually go on a ride rather than watch from the ground.

Memo to Jim Chalmers: if you want to stop inflation then blow up sideshow alley.