One day we were at her and her roommate’s apartment. She was telling us about the New Orleans’ Mardi Gras, where girls flash their boobs and get bead strings for each time they did it. I was dying to get there and see how it all will turn out. So I started asking questions, like if you can drink openly in New Orleans or do you have to flash cops so they would let you go with your beer; or does that flashing considered an improper public behavior or charity work – you know, those kinds of questions when you are trying to mask your genuine interest with funny stuff.

Turned out, when she was there she almost was announced a queen of some sort at Mardi Gras – given that she was 19 at that time and the size I mentioned above – it was bound to happen. We all talked some more about going to New Orleans, especially at the time when Mardi Gras starts (or ends – I didn’t really care at that moment) and have fun. I went into asking some more questions and, I think, that sort of gave me away.

She looked at me a little puzzled, then, like if she got the idea, she went into another room. Couple of minutes later she showed up with a thick bunch of those cheap beads they throw to women in New Orleans. She started giving them away. She gave me a couple of them and said that one day she would want those back, for same reason she got them the first time.

But that was whole another story.