Disco queen Alicia Bridges once said, “I love the nightlife. I’ve got to boogie on the disco round.”
While I concur with Ms. Bridges, there may be one thing I love more than the nightlife and boogieing on the disco round: Mardi Gras.
We all know Mardi Gras translates to Fat Tuesday, but in Justinese, it means “running wild and looking pretty” and like hydration, it is essential to survival.
I was hydrating myself on St. Charles Avenue a half-hour before Bacchus, half-listening to a fellow parade goer relate how he knows famous people – a guy who played in “Lake Placid” and a Heisman Trophy winner from the 1950s.
Not wanting to be surpassed, I lied and said I had worked as an assistant to Anderson Cooper. As I elaborated on how Andy was nice, private and way intelligent, a man, trying to steal my thunder, interrupted our conversation.
I say man out of political correctness, but this guy whom I encountered was not a man, but a character – something straight out of a David Lynch script or one of those made-for-TV movies about bad parents and crackheads.
He was dressed in a white chef’s uniform with a black and gold fleur-de-lis painted above the left breast pocket. In his hand was a plastic grocery bag with its contents concealed beneath a tight knot.
He called himself Chef “Who Dat,” and through my cheap keg beer haze, I wanted to slap him.
Chef “Who Dat” stood in the middle of the street and revealed the contents of the bag for all of Uptown to see – several wooden spoons spray painted gold. I knew I must acquire one of these treasures and made my way through the crowd to claim one.
“Now,” he instructed the audience, “when the Saints pass by, you all need to wave your spoons and shout ‘Who dat say they gonna beat them Saints? Who dat! Who dat!'”
I could cheer for Drew Easy Breezy or whatever his name is so I approached the chef to obtain my spoon. He looked at me with his beady brown eyes and said, “There are more spoon-worthy people out here,” and walked off.
I fought back tears and nursed my beer. I’m not valued by a grown man with a curled moustache penciled above his lip wearing a chef uniform from his brief stint as a chef at IHOP?
People around me waved their spoons as I sat on the neutral ground and pondered my existence. I had thought I was a fairly decent guy. I care about civil liberties and know the names of all members of the Jackson 5.
Did I really need this spoon to validate my existence? Um, yes.
Just as I was questioning my faith in God, Chef “Who Dat” returned, presenting me with his last golden spoon, saying, “You’re at the top of my list.”
Almost a month later, I have that spoon sitting on my desk as a memento of a great Mardi Gras and to remind myself that I am indeed spoon-worthy.
