A Dream of Parades Post #13

I’m lying in bed in that paralyzed state when you can see, smell, feel, and hear everything you are dreaming about. I’m convinced that, it is in this state of consciousness that many believe they have been abducted by aliens, simply because the dreams can seem so real. I’ve had many dreams in this state over the years. Some are just about ordinary days and what I would be hearing if I was napping in the middle of the day, perhaps on the couch. Yet in reality, no one is around to make those ordinary sounds. Other times I am being chased, or hear some type of very strong buzzing or mechanical sound and I feel heavy vibrations, as though someone were using a power saw on the bed I am laying on. This night, and many since, I have had this new, recurring dream where I cannot tell dream from reality.

As soon as I close my eyes, there are moonpies and beads flying through the air. Then there are stuffed animals, plastic cups, and “Ouch! Damn! That one hurt!” That, was a bag of beads! “Darn it! That wad of beads hit me right in the eye!” Thoughts would run through my head, like, “”Excuse me! Sir, I’m not the batter-up in the Yankees series and, You Sir, are not the Red Sox pitcher!” A northerner may respond to my having these dreams by saying, “Hmmm! What kind of male issues do you have, Mary?” A native Mobilian would say, “Those are no dreams, Silly!! You are at a Mardi Gras parade!” And if I were to have to choose sides, I’d say the north would be wrong and the south would be half-right.

The northerners would get it wrong because most of them have been to the same parades I have – or to the likes of them. There may be a few things thrown and it is the children who catch them. So little is thrown in fact, that most kids don't catch anything. Something you rarely see in the north, or perhaps any parades besides Mobile and New Orleans, are grown adults screaming for beads – or anything for that matter! In the north, if an adult did that at a parade there would be three reasons.

First, a personality disorder and/or no brain filter that tells them to conform or they will look like idiots! Second, they have no money and the only way they can provide toys for their kids is to bogart the extremely few candies and toys that are scantily thrown at the parades. Third, the person is simply a cheap-ass! They can afford the toys and they have no personality disorder but are too cheap to buy them. They will run down little children, and snuff the life out of very small pets, such as Chihuahuas, that may be in their path just to get the stinkin’ toys! They are often the ones hauled off in hand-cuffs or on a stretcher because someone beat the crap out of them for killing their little doggy, or simply out of secret envy that they, themselves, had not gotten the toy.

So, basically, I was brainwashed to believe that it is socially unacceptable to catch anything from a parade, unless it came right to me and then I must immediately hand it to a nearby kid. In the north, that is the protocol! As far as I knew, it was stupid to scream, howl, yell, raise up your arms, and beg for things at a parade! That was all there was to it!

At our first Mardi Gras parade, I marveled that people of every age stand on the sidelines with their arms in the air screaming for throws! At the first one, I was just too embarrassed to do it! At least until one of the riders apparently spotted me and said to himself, “Now that there is a Yankee if I’d ever seen one! Now, we’re going to teach her how to go to a parade!” That was when I got hit in the head with a bag of beads! I looked up to see the masked man looking straight at me, as though to say, “Yes! You, grown-up Yankee!” I then picked up the bag and happily tucked it under my arm, only to have a wad of beads land on my head, draped down my face! It was then that I realized that, to not have my arms up, could be a hazard to my health.

The parade kept rolling and it took about three floats to figure out why everyone carried bags with them. They were being stuffed as quickly as throws were being caught, but we were dropping our moonpies, beads, cups, fresh peanuts, stuffed animals and toys all over the ground until sympathetic natives gave us a few bags. At home we dumped the beads in the dining room and hundreds moonpies in the kitchen. We decided to continue piling the beads all season just to see how big the pile would get. After coming from Weenie-Parade-Land of the North, we were in shock of how much everyone could catch!

As the season went on, our pile grew and people compared notes on facebook as to how much they were getting.

The most ironic thing about detoxing from Weenie-Parade-Land of the north is, not only the huge amount of stuff thrown, but the adrenaline rush that one gets from catching it! Even when I'm exhausted and would prefer to stay home, I can barely resist a parade, just for the rush of catching the throws.

What I hadn’t anticipated, however, was that the parades would show up in my own bedroom, in the middle of the night, in my dreams; tossing beads and various throws at me while I was trying to sleep. Night after night last year, throughout the Mardi Gras season, and for a couple weeks after, as plain as day, I would see beads and moon pies flying through the night air, often hitting me, as I was falling asleep, and later, in my alien-abductable state. I had forgotten about those dreams! At least until they started again last week after going to the first few parades this year. And I often must ask myself during those nights, “Is this just a dream or am I really at a parade?”