and i thought id been to a "parade" before..

oh how i was wrong, so wrong.
ya sure back home we had parades.. the ones where there were lots of high school bands and all those old men that were somehow really important to our city but i had never even heard of them before. and by the time the parade actually got to my families camp out spot we were more interested in the doughnuts my dad just brought over than the actual parade going on.
ill tell you one thing about mardi gras. nobody was anywhere close to thinking about doughnuts. they had something much more important on their minds. BEADS. millions and millions of beads.
let me try and paint you a picture in your minds... the very first float of the night was a big white truck. but wait as the truck got closer i realized it was pulling a trailer, oh not a trailer.. there was actually a half man half horse dancing on the back of it. and BAM.

what a perfect introduction to completely sell me on this whole idea. the Krew of Centaur was here to party. Centaur himself even showed up, how nice of him. As i looked to my right and to my left i saw the crowd start to go wild, they were breaking it down like our high school drill team used to at half time... times ten. But the most interesting part was that i started seeing these weird contraptions. There was laundry baskets strapped to the end of a broom stick, umbrellas popped inside out, kids with buckets tied to hats on their tiny little heads.. youd think money was about to fall straight from heaven.

and thats when the floats started coming, hands down the most elaborate things ive ever seen. purples and greens and golds.. not only one, but two threee stories high. The people in the floats were even more decorated, their costumes were unlike anything i could imagine. i knew i had to get in on this. ill never forget my first set of beads. it played in slow motion... i was dancing, well trying, and we made eye contact, i saw him pick up a whole stack of beads and point straight to me. i knew he needed one final reason why i deserved those precious things in his hands. so i did what i had to do.. i copied what the two year old next to me kept saying, please mister throw me some beeds. they flew into the air and perfectly into my little hands. around my neck it went with all the pride ive ever felt.

I have to admit, the best part of this whole adventure was that i saw grown men and woman fighting tooth and nail for what wasnt really gold from heaven... but plastic worth maybe half a penny.but they were sparkly, and they were important.
thank you louisiana, for continually showing me how happy the little things should make me.