Trash or Treasure

I won’t wax too philosophical or theological or anthropological or anything else so deep on this post.  Just wanted to offer an observation after watching and interacting with the St. Patrick’s Parade in Baton Rouge today.  Draw whatever conclusions you like.  This seems to be the prevailing mindset at such festivities in these parts:

“If I didn’t actually catch it, and it isn’t better than the average beads, it’s just worthless crap!”

I filled up two recycled shopping bags full of beads today, most of which I scooped up effortlessly from the wet ground.  My son’s school puts on an annual Mardi Gras float parade, and they always need beads for the event.  So I wasn’t picky.  I just wanted all the free beads I could stuff in my two sacks.  Maybe the drizzly rain making the ground wet and slightly muddy here and there was a factor.  I don’t know.  All I know is I could have filled up the back of my pickup truck with beads from off the ground in just a one-block stretch of Perkins Road today.  Seriously – not an exaggeration!

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What makes it such a thrill to catch a tacky beaded necklace that you would only wear for two days out of the year when it costs like 25 cents to make, when it is not even worth a glance to notice the same beads that sailed three inches over your outstretched hands or the beads coming at you that cost only 15 cents?

And what is the “carbon footprint” of Mardi Gras and St. Patrick’s Day in Baton Rouge for just one year?!

Just pondering…