I had the great fortune of attending my home town’s (whateverth) annual Christmas Parade last weekend and it was an adventure. Think of the Macy’s day parade, then beat it up with a sock full or marbles and that’s sort of what happened. To make matters worse awesomer, my camera batteries died upon arrival so I had to snap a slew of pics with my phone. So sue me if it doesn’t have a built in Eight-Gajillion Mega-Marshall Definition Uber Lens, or whatever.
Things started off pretty good. Lots of companies vying for the attention of the thousands of people lining the streets that made up the parade’s course.

And immediately the cops showed up to put an end to whatever tom-foolery was brewing amongst the elderly group of people watching across the street. I think they were plotting a coup to take the mic from the announcer. More on him later.

What would any parade in the universe be without an unusual number of high school bands marching through, doing their little dances to show that they are ‘are too’ hip people. One time they finished playing and this kid with a trumpet walked up to us and just stood there anxious, like we were supposed to do something in return for his soulful rendition of “Start Me Up”. Well the gal next to us finally ended the awkwardness by shaking his hand. He seemed satisfied with that and walked off, all without saying A SINGLE WORD. Lurker.

This would be right about the time that a semi-truck barreled through, almost taking out the old folks standing on the corner as it turned, only to be followed by what I can only assume is a 6 foot long ‘Semi-semi-truckette.’

It was here that I decided to visually show my attitude towards the event.

I couldn’t help but also be baffled at the city’s choice in announcer. There were several as the route was pretty long, but the block we were on apparently grabbed a tipsy homeless guy to describe the events. He sounded like Lewis Black cranked up to eleventeen. He was yelling, I mean it, YELLING into the mic, just random names. “TOBY!!! CHANDLER!!!! LEROY JENKINS!!!!!!” To top it of he reminded me of the weird Santa Clause at the mall who’s belligerent and tired.

Oh. Here’s a picture of some dogs pulling a wagon.

Step aside Kobra-Kai, our town has nine year old girls who do karate! SWEEP THE LEG!

And finally. The ‘float’ I was waiting for all night. ‘Pugs in the Park’ is just a group of pug owners who hang out in the park. But once a year they strut their mutts through the parade and boy is it awesome. I didn’t manage to get any shots of the dogs (due to my camera dilemma) but let’s just say pugs dressed up like the Grinch are amazing.

Finally, after a couple hours of successfully transforming my fingers into icicles, the big man finally rolled through. “Wait for me to take a picture!” I yelled at him (Non-verbally. Most of my yelling is done in my noggin). But the man was in some kind of hurry so my photo didn’t turn out. (Well, it didn’t turn out because I was using a TELEPHONE to take his picture but that’s neither here nor there.)

The parade was over and everyone started herding to their cars. Disappointed as I was to have been so close to potential present prowess and failed, I decided to pay Big Red a visit and tell him what for. I walked to his house, which was conveniently located only a couple blocks away but was greeted with a ‘No Admittance’ sign. All I could think was “Who is this guy’s architect? Santa should get a refund…”

Happy holidays everybody!