I was thinking the other day about how we got thousands of people coming in from other places to watch parades every year, and at least half of them got the misimpression that the only way to catch beads is to show their boobs. This absolutely ain’t so. Not that no MAN will tell you that.
But most local people think of it as cheap and tasteless and it’s probably a mortal sin, too. Plus, of course it will wind up on Facebook and your grammaw will see it.
Sin don’t pay.
Here are Modine’s seven rules for catching a lot.
1. Squat on something, preferably a wheelchair, and look pathetic. And when a float rider feels sorry for you and throws a whole dozen beads, leap up like Lebron James.
2. When the float you are dying to catch something from — like in Muses — approaches, wait until it’s almost in front of you, and toss up a handful of them cheap rubber bouncy balls. When everybody goes to the ground to get them, only you are standing for The Shoe.
3. Make friends with the people around you, so they’ll be less likely to claim a pair of beads when both of you have caught it.
4. Don’t be ashamed to scramble on the ground yourself for some nice long beads or something.
5. If you got a toddler, wave him or her around some. They always attract the good stuff.
6. Try to catch stuffed animals in the air, or else handed down, to avoid having to fish them out a puddle.
7. Stand out somehow, (without showing your boobs). Maybe by holding up a sign that says “FROM NEW JERSEY. FIRST TIME.” Or some equally touching lie.
Well, this year I was all set to instruct the Gunch cousin Giselda, who was in from Pennsylvania. She claimed that she had NOT come in for Mardi Gras, but she was doing research on katrotypes of five species of cockroaches — or something like that. But she stayed at my sister-in-law Gloriosa’s house, which is Uptown, home of cockroaches and also near where all the parades roll.
Gloriosa is busy one Saturday and she asks me to stop by and take Giselda for a ride on the streetcar (which Giselda calls “the trolley”).
So I do. But it’s Carnival Time, and naturally the streetcar stops at Napoleon and St. Charles because the parades are coming.
We get off, and I ask Giselda if she wants to stay for the parade and she smiles and says, “Oh, why not?”
Now Giselda is kind of short, maybe five-two, with ordinary hair, an ordinary face, and an ordinary build. Not somebody that would catch anybody’s attention, ordinarily.
The parade is coming pretty quick. So I don’t have time to tell her my seven rules. I find a plastic bag on the ground and hand it to her to put stuff in.
“Really?” she says. “I might need a bag?”
“If you’re lucky, I tell her.”
I pull out my own bag, which I carry in my purse this time of year, just in case.
So the parade comes and the king stands up on his float and throws a dozen beads right to her.
“How nice,” she says.
NICE!? It’s a freaking miracle. Kings normally don’t throw anything, much less stand up on the float and throw a dozen beads to a stranger.
And then, every single float that comes by proceeds to bomb her with stuff. Bomb her! I have to give her my bag, and then scrounge around on the ground between people’s feet to find her two more bags.
She is a that rare species. A NBM — Natural Bead Magnet. And with her boobs covered.
By the time it’s over, and I am standing there panting, she says, “Well, that was fun!”
For her maybe. I caught maybe three things.
This woman has to come visit next year. We could rent her out.
I still stand by my seven rules.
But to every rule there’s an exception. That’s what the nuns used to tell us. And they were right.
