Beads and Boobs (both kinds)

This weekend is my little burg's 101st occassion to throw its own knockoff version of Mardi Gras, which is in turn a knockoff of Carnival. (At 101 years, it's been around for a while I guess, but still... You want to really party? Go to Rio.) Part of the gala is the obligatory parade where people like me will walk alongside a float and toss tacky plastic beads into a crowd of people in various stages of inebriation.

Just what people find so fascinating about the damnable little things is absolutely beyond me. I know people do odd things when they're drunk, but I've never seen people so, well, eager to collect them. Toss one overhead and watch them pile into a scrum in a mad-dash effort to lay a beer-soaked paw on it. (And those are just the guys. Gals... well, I don't want to get crude, but it makes me stop and ponder whether I've been wasting good money on the whole dinner/flowers/show thing.) Not only that, some will get rather rude if you don't hurl one their way. I suppose they're some sort of badge of honor or rite of passage, but at least Mistress Prynne got something to show for her scarlett letter.

Of course, the real crooks are the bead makers. This has to be one of the biggest scams going since someone decided to bottle tap water and call it Perrier. Never mind the complete waste of petrolium product gone into making them. I suppose I'm really just annoyed that I hadn't thought of it first, but give me time. At some point, I'll think of something that'll let me collect gobs of money from unsuspecting rubes before someone finally has an attack of sense and goes, "I'm paying good money for this?"

By then I'll be long gone...