As I was saying, what happened to K at Endymion several years ago merits its own post. We finished watching Mid-City and continued to enjoy ourselves. N’s husband, J, even bought a wig, too–a huge afro. And at one point in the day, J was quietly working on a project out of the trunk of my car. He’d found a pen and was making a sign out of the inside of a case of beer. It looked like a homeless man’s “Will Eat For Food” sign, but read, “Throw to the ‘Fro.” The riders responded to that ‘fro, too! The beads at Endymion were flung to J at a ratio of 4:1 to us gals. We were no longer amused with his sign.

As the night wore on and Endymion was winding down, a pair of long beads were flung from a float. They were headed straight to K. She was looking the other way. The beads hit her smack in the face. In the mouth to be exact. She yelped and put her hand to her mouth. She then screamed, “My tooth! It’s chipped!!” Sure enough, there was a small piece of her front tooth missing. Though small, it was noticeable.

Of course, that threw a wet blanket on the parade. We traipsed back to my office where we were parked. K called her mother and tried to arrange to fly home right then. We tried to talk her into staying, but it was hard to say that it wasn’t noticeable. She kept saying, “I look like a redneck!” which just made us smother our laughter.

To our delight, the cost of the airfare was too high and K decided to stay. We had dinner and then went for drinks at the Rivershack. By night’s end, K seemed to be calmed down about her tooth. She decided to get it fixed once she returned home.

K came back for Mardi Gras last year. And don’t you know that she never did get that chip fixed? She claims she has come to like her “redneck grin” and it reminds her of a great time she had with her friends. That, or she’s been too busy to get it fixed these some eight years!