Horse Shit and Beer # 29

            It was our first year to experience Mardi Gras and our 3^rd parade.  Barry our Biologist and girlfriend Georgia identified us as what Mobileans call people who’ve never been through Mardi Gras:  Mardi Gras Virgins.  We heard that term many times our first six months in Mobile from people discovering we were new then happily sharing details of what to expect.

Don't know who the guys are but here is an example of prize beads!  Thanks guys!

      Miss Georgia told us about the ‘prize beads’.  They are fancier (and more expensive) than the typical beads.  She explained that it’s not unusual to catch prize beads, though they are few and far between and most people just buy them.

            It was another cool – but not cold – southern night in February, 2009.  The moon hung bright in the sky and the air had the typical smells of Mardi Gras; roasted peanuts,  pop-up food stands, and the smell of exhaust from police motorcycles circling in the streets entertaining the crowds while along the four-mile route before the parades begin.  We parked less than a block from Bienville Square and crossed the street where the parade would be coming. 

    Once the gates close at each intersection, there’s absolutely no crossing back until all of the parades are over.  As we stood waiting, I got talking to a beautiful black girl who, it turned out, we had a lot in common.  We chatted happily about our career paths – me having been in the field for 14 years and she just beginning her journey.  Soon, the parade rolled in and the conversation continued intermittently between floats.  

So many beads are flying through the air that some get stuck in trees, on poles and wires and can remain there for years.  Beads also lay all over the ground and the inexperienced run around picking them up while perfectly good ones are still flying through the air.  The natives catch all they can when the float goes by, then pick up the good ones while waiting for the next.

While a float was passing, I noticed, not one string of prize beads, but a whole wad, still bound in their original packaging lying on the ground.  I had been told that when people see something they like on the ground, they step on it, holding it down with their foot so that no one else can get it while they are catching more beads.  After the particular float passes, they pick up whatever it is they have under their foot.  But no one was guarding those prize beads!

            I watched for a moment, not wanting to make someone mad, breaking the spell of niceness in our Mobilian experience.  Still, with nobody noticing, I decided to make my move.  While everyone was distracted with the throws coming off the current float, I snuck through the crowd, reaching through a sea of legs, hoping not to get stepped on and snatched the beads up, promptly placing them around my neck to proudly display my catch.

            No sooner had I gotten them on over my beautiful, stylish, mid-length, grey, wool coat -perfect for this type of weather - I noticed a horrible stench.  I looked around to figure out what it could be.  Horses had walked by moments before and I noticed they had tracked manure all over the streets. I suggested to our group that we move down the street a little to get away from the stench.   We moved about 100 feet.

‘Hmmm!  Those horses sure did track that stuff everywhere!’ I thought.   Even worse was the smell of stale beer that lingered in the air as well.  Horse poop and stale beer is just a putrid mixture, one that is so repulsive that it was gagging. This just smelled way more intimate than it was supposed to.  Then my nose itched!  I reached up to scratch it.  "Yuck!  What just made it worse?’   I thought. I automatically smelled my hand and realized that the smell was on my hands!  Then I sniffed the beads around my neck.  Yup!  Horse shit and beer all over the beads, which were now around my neck, sitting on my beautiful coat!  My new best friend was laughing her butt off while I was fluctuating between laughter and gagging!

            I yanked the beads off, tossing them aside, secretly hoping that some other idiot would fall into the same trap.  Misery loves company!  At this point, there was no place to wash.  My hands, coat and hair stunk!   All like horse shit and beer – as though someone had stirred them into a pot to get the right, putrid mixture, hoping that someone like me would do just what I did.  The parade continued, as we laughed hysterically and I continued the cycle of catching, gagging, laughing.   It seemed to be the longest parade EVER!  I could see my car less than one block away but couldn't get to it to leave so we continued in the festivities, me stinking like hell as float after float after float paraded by.

     Finally, the fire truck signifying the end of the parade went by.  I ran to the gate to cross when my new best friend explained, between her giggles, that that truck signified the ending of the first parade!  There were two more to go, each having its own fire truck at the end!  So there we stood, for another agonizing 45 minutes.    I mean, really!   What else could I have done!?!  There was no place to go except possibly the Seaman’s Lounge and every Mobilian knows that is not a nice place for any girl who considers herself a lady.  

            Finally, the parades ended and upon returning home I headed straight for the shower; still gagging!  The coat went to the dry cleaner.  That day, I learned alot about greed.  Just because the opportunity is there doesn’t mean we have to take it.  It had seemed so easy!  Within reach!  The jewels were right there and no one seemed to notice.  But by now, being an extremely experienced Mardi Grasler, I realize people had seen!  They saw where the beads landed and they knew they stunk!  I, not having the full picture, saw a pile of beautiful prize beads that I wanted to snatch up and hog all to myself!   This made me think of those times in life when we see what looks like the perfect opportunity to get something that is not meant for us that we want to keep for ourselves.  We look around to make sure no one is looking and make our move, only to find out later that we got does nothing more than weigh us down because it was not meant for us to begin with.    It was a lesson learned the hard way that, just because something looks good to the eye, in reality, it may truly stink.