As a weight guesser, Mike Caron knows that loose lips will get you socked in the gut — esepecially when the customer is on the portly side.

So he's always careful to ask, "Do you want me to guess out loud, or write it down?" It's a professional precaution. Nobody wants the whole midway to know the weight-guesser thinks you're a porker.

"I got hit once," Caron said. "Now I ask."

But flattering patter always works — even when it's a tad flirtatious. As he hands an inflatable baseball bat to a winning mother and her toddler, he jokes, "My guidance counselor was wrong. Women pay me to look at them."

Lest you think the mice in the "Mouse Game" lead a tough life, the game's workers have a disclaimer posted.

In the game, which is near the Exposition Center, a mouse is placed on a roulette-style board. He pauses for a moment, then runs into one of the multicolored holes. Players have placed 50-cent bets on individual colors. If Mr. Mouse picks your color hole, you win a stuffed animal.

The sign notes that individual mice are rotated out on an hourly basis. It also says that the mice are fed a strict, healthy diet of "commercially produced grain and distilled water."

We just hope they also are kept safe from the exhibit right across the way — the 20-foot-long, 300-pound "live snake"!