As we were driving out to Bedford yesterday I saw a bunch of those cheap signs by the entrance to 128 hung on wires with plastic between them advertising the Boston Pool and Patio Expo. Since we are looking forwards to having fun this summer lounging by the pool in Marshfield I was easily swayed by this crude form of advertisement into visiting the Bay Side Expo Center today. We were hoping to find a perfect set of lounge chairs to recline on as we sip home brewed Mojitos while waiting for our burgers and dogs to cook on the Weber grill. I envisioned a circus atmosphere for this expo including fully extended swimming pools filled with bikini models attempting to sway wealthy suburban buyers into purchasing one brand of pool or another. These models would fly from the ceiling from a trapeze inspired by Cirque de Soleil’s ‘O’ and this would only be the pool and hot tub section. The hot tub section would have, for a fee, rentable bathing suits to sit with the bikini models in various pool settings. Beyond the pool area there would be a vast selection of patio and lawn furniture of different styles, shapes, and genres that would put the New York State fair to shame. I would be able to sample iron vs. wood and even laugh at chinsy plastic backed chairs with those straps that leave your back with stripes on it. We could even pick-up some of the stands that we desperately need to hold the umbrellas that my dad purchased on the Internet but decided not to get with stands because the shipping costs were too high.

So, given my expectations of a full day of expo wonder in a dreamlike world of pool fantasies when we arrived at the Bayside Expo Center I wasn’t that surprised at the Disneyland price of $12.00 to park my car in their somewhat empty lot. What is $12.00 I thought for the treat of a world of retail debauchery. We walked to the door to the Pool and Patio Expo and saw that it would obviously be a huge event within the massive Bayside multiplex facility because there were multiple signs directing people carefully to split them between a GLEE Boston show and the pool and patio show. Ha! Those GLEE Boston people are trying to sneak part of the audience from the pool show I thought. What a great idea to use the advertising budget from such a massive event, people who can afford to cover highway exits with cheap planted wire and plastic signs.

So we found our way into the pool and patio exposition and were immediately filled with wonder as we saw an entire room filled with square hot tubs. It was a big room filled with square hot tubs. Some of them were white, others brown, one was so big that it was almost a swimming pool, and one had a television built into the hot tub. This must be a huge event, we thought, if they can fill an entire room with hot tubs. We should go looking for the lawn furniture room! So after poking around for a moment attempting to get directions from a security guard we learned that the entire expo was this room full of identical looking square hot tubs. Not only were these hot tubs identical looking to us but they also were generally sold before we had arrived. So if we happened to like a brown instead of a yellow hot tub we would not have been able to purchase it if we wanted to. I looked in the hot tubs, most of which were empty, for the bikini models and only saw those four hundred headed spider eye like metal fixtures at the bottom that you would rather feel than see. We did see a couple of cool bar fixtures for hanging out by the pool and a couple of people were selling pool design services with pictures of pools that they had designed behind them but overall this was not just a minor let down. It had been beyond any possibility the most under whelming possible experience that I could have expected. It had exceeded any possible level of disappointment.

So we left the pool and patio expo after about 20 minutes because they didn’t even have furniture to sit beside the identical looking sold hot tubs that wasn’t for sale and I was still smarting from my $12.00 that I had spent to park at the event. So I suggested to Sarah that as long as we were at the Expo center we may as well check out the GLEE show. Now I had heard the GLEE show advertised on the radio a few times so I knew that the G in GLEE stood for Gay. It is in fact the Gay Lifestyle Enrichment Exposition that we were standing outside the front door of as a nice heterosexual married couple with our six month old baby strolling around in a snap and go. So I didn’t have as much time to envision what was inside of the GLEE show but I did have visions of it as well prior to going inside. I imagined that it would be filled with gay people staring at Sarah and myself but otherwise having a great time partying while going booth to booth where people were advertising products like gay cruises, gay pornography, and weird kinky sex toys. I had an image in my head that someone had managed to condense all of Greenwich Village and Provincetown into a single giant trade show floor, Disney World style, and Boston’s gay world was having a grand time partying in it. Since I had paid $12.00 to park – I was going to see it!

So Sarah and I peeked our heads in after passing a few lesbian couples hanging out by the door for an outdoor cigarette. An apparently gay greeter greeted us and informed us that there was a fee to get into the Expo. He asked us whether we were at the right show and was ready to point in the direction of the stupid square hot tub collection across the parking lot. He had a nametag hanging from his neck like people do at proper trade shows. This increased my interest because it lent legitimacy to my fantasy that it was going to be a glamorous event for an exclusive set of interested parties. I wanted to use our obvious knack for not fitting in to our advantage by mentioning that we had come for the other show but were curious about this show. He escorted us nicely past the registration booth, told us that there were plenty of fortune 500 companies advertising, handed us a bag full of goodies, mentioned that there was live entertainment in the back and launched us onto our journey into the show without having to pay the fee.

At first glance the GLEE show is just a trade show with the same structure of booths and displays as other shows. Many of the booths contained the fortune 500 companies trying to sell luxury or financial products including American Airlines and AXA Financial. Apparently gay people, because often they aren’t burdened by 6 month old babies soon to require college tuition and drinking money, have a large amount of disposable income that needs to be spent and invested. So companies have decided to market at gay friendly events. For example, there is nothing particularly gay about either meat or cheese but Cabot cheese was giving away free samples and coupons while d’Agostino meats was offering free tastings and a lottery to win a freezer full of meat. They refrained from any specific gay advertising with regards to the meat. Mohecan Sun was giving out some very useful tape measure, level, post-it note products and offering to deliver a free night’s stay. Some companies also were just marketing cool stuff including one that sold high end bathroom gadgets with both a normal size bathtub filled with tons of Jacuzzi spray jets, a wall mirror that could turn into a television and back with a simple switch, and a toilet that opened when you passed it including both a bidet and deodorizer.

In general we were the only people walking around with a baby. This was fun because plenty of people like babies and would come over to say hi and ogle and entertain Madeline then start-up a short conversation with us. The lack of a 6 month old baby problem was something that there were a few solutions for among the booths. The show offered a number of different sperm banking locations including California Cryo-bank that boasts that only 2% of sperm donors pass their stringent screening process and some IVF center in central Massachusetts.

The show did have some areas that weren’t as well targeted to us including the two booths advertising their status as the leading gay porn magazines and a large collection of dyke in the city clothing. One booth was for Out magazine or something like it and had an interactive flash game called “Get Lucky” that I was too timid to play. We made friends with a flamboyant gay real estate agent who told Sarah that I was very cute and to hold on to me tightly. He waved to a man walking past and signaled ‘can I have your number’ to which the man nodded and walked onwards. One photographer had a set-up selling large prints of naked odd people including a woman with her shirt off who had apparently undergone plastic surgery to become a transsexual man, a tall elderly woman with stiff taught silicone implants, and a heavily tattooed and pierced woman with half shaved, half bright red streaked hair. A gay cruise line was marketing and there were plenty of organizations and associations including rainbows in their logos.

We did manage to find some lawn furniture at the show. A nice man and his sleeping daughter or business partner, a round tattooed lip pierced younger person with a shaved head, were selling beautiful teak furniture. We sat and listened for about half an hour about the wonders of teak because it doesn’t get water damaged and the fine joinery from the manufacturers that the man buys from. He quoted us on teak pool chairs and we even wandered over to the live music area to sit on a chair that looked like it was from the titanic to see how comfortable it would be. We also found a nice photographer who apparently specialized in heterosexual family portraits but had some great pictures in her portfolio and had an impressive bound book that she had made for a family of four.

Overall we had a grand time at the GLEE show to help offset our extreme disappointment at the Pool and Patio Expo. We left feeling like our $12 on parking was well spent.