Next week I'm marching in the St. Patrick's Day parade in New Orleans.  I'm part of the Irish Channel Walking Crew.  Next week, we will don our tuxedos and march through the streets of New Orleans handing out beads and flowers, and in exchange the women on the parade route HAVE to kiss you in return.  Seriously, who thought of this?  You give a woman a $.25 cent string of beads and in return she plays tonsil hockey with you.  Additionally, there are THOUSANDS of women who are ok with this deal.  Even better, Mrs. Commissioner is perfectly ok with me lip locking a few hundred women next week. (Note: The New Orleans people know these kisses are air kisses more often than not, there is very little lip locking going on, but NEVER let the facts get in the way of a good story).

In preparation for next week's parade, the Irish Channel Walking Crew had a practice march yesterday.  Again, I do not know who came up with this idea, but, they ought to be shot.  Yesterday I got up at 5:45 a.m.  My friend Chip picked me up at my house at 6:30 a.m. precisely and we headed toward the French Quarter of New Orleans.  We arrived at the meeting place at approximately 7:15 a.m., and then began marching.  We marched to 20 bars throughout the day.  We stayed at each bar for 20-25 minutes or so.  We were served beer at each bar.  As much beer as we wanted.  One of the stops thought it would be a brilliant idea to set out an entire table of DOUBLE Jameson shots. 

It was interesting to watch the day unfold.  Of course, we had a truck leading the parade blaring loud Irish drinking music.  Early in the morning it was quite amusing to watch people walk out on their balconies with a clear WTF look on their face.  If the person walking out on the balcony was a woman, she was pelted with beads. Lots and lots of beads.  One particular woman came out on the balcony wearing nothing more than a teddy.  To say all hell broke lose when 500 comfortably buzzed men saw a good looking woman with no pants jumping up and down for beads is a bit of an understatement.  She probably thought she hit the bead lotto.  I took a picture of her bottomless self on my cellphone, but I have no idea how to pull the picture off my phone.  You can probably find some pictures of her somewhere on the internet today. 

By 11:21 a.m., about 4 knuckleheads decided the 12 pack they bought was getting warm, so they 'shotgunned' the last 4 beers.  At 1:00 p.m. one member of our lot, passed out on the floor at Coyote Ugly.  At 1:27 p.m., another member of our lot threw up on the ridiculously cute waitress, Shorty at Viola.  She was just giving out free shots afterall.  At 4:04 p.m. we got into an intense debate as to which Bourbon Street strip club was most likely to give out complimentary sipro pills at the door.  At 4:27 p.m., I BEGGED my wife to pick me up.  At 4:28 p.m., I was called a pussy by 7 of the 8 guys left standing in my group for 'skipping out on them'.  The other guy, confessed to me his wife was 5 minutes behind my wife.

At 5:38 p.m., one of the other guys, who had previously led the charge of calling me a pussy, was now giving me hell, for not bringing him with me, when my wife picked me up.  He drunkenly said something about having a chocolate milkshake, and hiding in some bushes, hoping his wife didn't see him, because he had missed his child's school fundraiser.

I'm glad I was not summoned by the God of the Bowl last night.  I'm glad I feel good today.  Now, I won't feel so bad about doing it all again next week.