I think I’m an anomaly at this school. Am I the one person here that thinks Mardi Gras could be — just maybe — a bad idea?Do college students (or a good deal of adults) really need more of a reason to do stupid things? I say that people are already stupid enough in general, that they don’t need a holiday to encourage them.Don’t misunderstand me. A single stupid person doing something can be quite amusing. Who doesn’t love hearing about the guy who downed a bottle of tequila, then rode the “mechanical bull,” only to wake up in the drunk tank to find out that the bull was actually a Shriner’s buggy?That’s good family fun. The problem comes when thousands of stupid drunk people congregate in a compact area. That just seems like a bad idea. Certain images come to mind: angry mobs, drunken riots and soccer hooliganry at its best. Most of the time, there isn’t any ill will, but I have seen the dark side of the holiday. Don’t you just hate it when you’re minding your own business trying to watch a huge battle royale in a mall parking lot, when someone drives up toting a shotgun and ruins the evening? I sure do. Luckily for the city, Mardi Gras is a joyous time, or New Orleans would have to be rebuilt every year. The need to go out on the town, get plastered around hundreds of people you don’t know and act like a fool astounds me. Isn’t that what friends are for?Wouldn’t you rather get drunk in front of people you trust, so if you do anything stupid, the entire town doesn’t know about it?In the end, it comes down to levels of tolerance. Maybe everyone else can tolerate more stupidity than I can. I need my stupidity in little chunks.I’m fine with that. I’ll take my little shots of idiocy while everyone else chugs straight from the bottle.Let’s see who gets sick first.

Writers Note: I know that not everyone drinks at parades. Let’s face it, though: There are more than enough people who do to cover for those who don’t.