My Parade

I was in a parade once. As a kid I did things for my parents that I was too young and naive to know should have been embarrassing and not enjoyable. Which explains how I can remember dressing in a lion costume to be on my dad's Lion's Club float in Maryland Heights with nothing stronger than mild bemusement. And just for reference, no one should dress in a lion costume unless it completely covers your face (it didn't) or it makes you 100x sexier (it also didn't).

Aside from that, all my parade memories involve waiting for candy. I haven't even seen a parade in years and I don't belong to any group for which they have a special parade. Or do they have a parade for aimless 30-something bald guys that like to wear black polos? Cause I would march the shit out of that.

And, more importantly, what if there were a parade for my life? What would the top five parade floats/balloons be for that? Isn't that the question we should be asking? Forget the economy and Afghanistan and Casey Anthony. (Seriously. Let's all just stop talking about Casey Anthony.) Let's focus on me.

Picture that old town america. The courthouse square. Pleasant folks lining the streets. Wait ... let's go the other way. Picture raging skyscrapers on a blue day with a crisp wind and all the people you could imagine of all races and orientations and pleasantries and denominations with smiles and balloons lined up on the sidewalks and there's that ticker tape flitting down from the open windows with people hanging out having a beer cuz, c'mon, let's all chill out and have a beer and watch my parade.

Ready?

1) A baby falling out of a watermelon truck (float). This one might be complicated, but really it just has to have a box with wheels and a bunch of lumps, most watermelon-colored and one baby-colored. This would be me and how I came into the world, according to my dad.

2) A giant hearing aid (balloon). Because I'm hard of hearing and it's defined my life in a big way, even if it's not a glamorous disability. On a side note: When I get old it will no longer be notable that I wear easy listening devices. That's going to be weird.

3) My cat, Washington (balloon).

Just an ordinary grey and brown-striped house cat, flying low and getting all up in people's laps and bumping their chins demanding to be petted like he does to me all the time even if I'm trying to read or play a game. And I'm sure people would be injured and flee in terror, but that's a small price to pay for understanding how I've kept a small creature alive for at least 10 years.

4) David Armand miming "Torn" (float).



Because that's seriously one of the funniest things I've ever seen. And he could be on the float doing it, too!

5) A 100% accurate representation of Zooey Deschanel (creepy balloon).

Oh, Zooey. And then I'd park it above my apartment so I could go out in the morning in a t-shirt and pajama pants and gesture to her with my cup of coffee. And in that magic Zooey way, she'd wink at me and everything would be alright.

And everyone would go away happy in the end. The parade commentators would be Big Bird and James Earl Jones who would get along fabulously and reenact my favorite scenes from Field of Dreams with Big Bird doing the Terrance Mann parts and Jones doing all the other parts. Just imagine Big Bird saying, "Well you said your finger was a gun!" or "People will come, Ray". (That was a strange tangent.) And there'd be a marching band playing some of my favorite songs like "The Cave" by Mumford & Sons and "Third Rock From the Sun" by Joe Diffie. Shriners driving tiny Chevy Cavaliers with black engine hoods, which was my first car. And there'd be a special section for my favorite comic book creators like Peter David and John Romita Jr. and Jerry Ordway and Jeffrey Brown and Liz Prince and James Kochalka and dozens more.

And in the end there would be milk and cookies, not because I'm a big Andy Kaufman fan, but because that would be a really sweet and nice thing to do. And I'd want people to leave my parade with a general feeling of wellness. Holding hands, hugging, kissing when appropriate. If you're reading this near someone you care about, feel free to do that now, even without the parade.