Mardi Vieux

Everyone has heard of Mardi Gras.

It's Fat Tuesday, the day before the start of Lent, when everyone -- Catholic or not -- indulges in all kinds of questionable behavior before (presumably) giving it all up for the 40 days leading up to Easter. Supposedly, it helps you get into Heaven.

 In Louisiana and some other southern outposts, Mardi Gras is a paid holiday when just about everything closes -- stores, schools, shops. That's to give everyone a whole day to enjoy their indulgences while sitting on the side of the road, waiting for a parade. The parade is a small flotilla of floats and/or trucks filled with people who also are partaking in their indulgences, and they throw things at us. 

 But in New Orleans and the surrounding areas, Mardi Gras isn't just one day. It's several days and even weeks of such behavior, along with glitzy balls, beautiful tableaus, king cakes with and without cream cheese, clothing of weird color combinations, costumes, house parties, crawfish boils, tourists, nightmare traffic and lots and lots of alcohol.

Now don't get me wrong. All of those things are fun, and I have done probably more than my fair share of all of the above. But, eventually, you get over it. 

Instead of celebrating Mardi Gras -- Fat Tuesday --  you start to celebrate Mardi Vieux -- Old Tuesday. That's when you stay home and watch the parades on TV so you can drink iced tea, laugh at the silly costumes, and pee in your own bathroom instead of some stranger's. Or a bush.

Hey! It happens. Even the most ardent Mardi Gras fan gets old. Nobody wants to see your booty or your boobs anymore, and neither will get you any beads anyway, so you end up in some shiny-sequiny-feathery outfit that makes you look like the wacky old lady you now are, in comfortable shoes you really don't want to get dirty. 

My late mother-in-law Jane, her sister Alice and their cousin, Dottie.

The thought of packing up the car is daunting. You need blankets and jackets because it might be cold, it might be hot. You need a cooler with ice, and a couple of kinds of beer, and a couple of kinds of soft drinks, and  a couple of bottles of water. Mardi Gras is a marathon, not a sprint. 

Then you need snacks and, of course, some Popeye's fried chicken, but the line is always too long, it always takes forever, and they always, always, always get the order wrong. 

 Now you have to decide where to go. The Krewe of Chad (the privileged) have already staked out their Uptown spots with ladders and tarps so there's no place to go, really. If you're lucky, you have a friend who has a house along the parade route. But it's still going to take you an hour and a half to get there and another 40 minutes to find a place to park that is both safe and legal. If you're incredibly lucky, they have parking. At the very least, you'll now have a place to pee. 

 But you're still old with a bad back, knees and feet. There's no way you can stand on the side of the road behind a wall of ladders for hours on end, screaming and waving and hoping to get the attention of one guy sober enough to spot you in the crowd. And maybe he'll throw you a bunch of beads and you'll feel like a Super Bowl champion for catching them -- but then what the hell are you supposed to do with them when it's over? 

Unknown float rider.

And after the last float has passed, you have to hurry up to get out of the way of the street sweepers, lugging your chairs, blankets, jackets, cooler, and all of your loot back to the car. Do you remember where you parked? And you have to hurry because you probably blocked someone in who is in a hurry to get to the Interstate, where you both will sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic for an hour or so, and you really need to pee. 

And then you'll get home with your beads, a plastic sword, silk roses and light-up sunglasses. You'll throw it all in a pile in the corner for now because you have to run to the bathroom. You'll check your shoes to see how much damage was done and if they can be salvaged. You'll grab one of the last beverages from the cooler and a cold drumstick from the Popeye's box and sit and reflect on the day. 

Because there really is nothing like Mardi Gras, whether you're young or old. If you grew up with a family and friends who loved it, you're lucky. If you only got to experience it once or twice, you're still lucky. And if all you have left are the happy memories of those wonderful days spent with parents and siblings and aunts, uncles, cousins and friends -- or strangers -- well, you're really one of the fortunate ones.

Because everywhere else, it's just another Tuesday.