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Mardi Gras Forecast
Mawmaw Fontenot
My grandkids from Oregon call me Mawmaw, and I don’t like it. I’ve noticed that most of my peer group have managed to get themselves called Meme. Meme is fine. Mawmaw is not fine. Mawmaw sounds old, rural, uneducated, unattractive, and not fitting for a single, attractive, sharp, recently retired real estate agent like me. The grandkids from Oregon have their own unbecoming names: Senda, Klee, and Flavian. They called recently. They were all on the phone at once, and I think their parents were on the phone too. They have loads of phones and every technological thing imaginable. The three kids did the talking, mostly all talking at once. The phone conversation went like this: “Mawmaw Fontenot! You know, some kids at school say Font-uh-NOT. They won’t say Font-uh-know! Guess what? We are coming to visit you for Mardi Gras!!!! Isn’t that great! We can’t wait!!!! What‘s a king cake? Can you have a king cake for us? With a baby in it? Please? We have dental insurance, you know, so we aren’t afraid of accidentally biting the baby or anything. Is is going to be a real baby? Mardi Gras -- What does that MEAN? Gras means fat, I know that. I’m taking French you know, so I’ll be able CONVERSE with PEOPLE down there!!! We need to see Rex and Zulu and Bacchus . Are you in a krewe? Can we be in a krewe? We want to throw the beads, not just catch them. Is there a Wrecking Krewe-- because Klee ought to be in that. Hey, I do not need to be in a Wrecking Krewe. And Klee is going to have to go to the bathroom. Will we be able to go to the bathroom while we are out at the parades? Can we get beignets while we are down there? Please? Can we go to a Mardi Gras Ball? Can you pick us up on Thursday before Mardi Gras, Delta, at 11:00? Will we miss a lot if we don’t come earlier? Should we come a week earlier? Ok now Delta. You know, mom and dad can’t come. It will just be us, so we can’t wait at the airport by ourselves or anything. I think you should get there about thirty minutes early, just in case. OK? Please? Delta -- Did you write it down Mawmaw?” Now these kids are wonderful kids, and I love them, but I had not envisioned that the first Mardi Gras of my retirement would be spent finding strategic bathroom accommodations along parade routes. I consulted with the webmaster back at the real estate office about the situation. He’s a nice and nice looking twenty-eight year old man. I arranged to meet him for a latte at PJ’s Coffeehouse. He is so sweet. He said that he could whip up a very real-looking website forecasting extremely bad weather for Mardi Gras. In a few days, the website was ready. The weather on that website looked very formidable. Terrible flying weather, and certainly the type of weather that warranted canceling parades. It said that right on the website. The website had several links to other fake weather pages, all giving the illusion that all of the nation’s meteorologists were forecasting terrible Mardi Gras weather. I e-mailed the link to the website detailing the forecasted bad weather to the grandkids and waited. I expected to get a phone call or an e-mail back at least questioning the wisdom of the planned trip. Instead, after two days I got an e-mail back which read, “Hawhaw Mawmaw.” There was an attachment to the e-mail, and the attachment had the kids’ itinerary. Thursday, Delta, 11:00. Returning Wednesday, Delta, 2:00. |
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