Yeah, I was tempted. What of it?
Gift shops and grocery stores. When traveling, both are musts for me. The first cause, ok, I’m a trinket whore with a fierce shopping habit and the second cause I don’t think there’s any better place to find out how people live their daily lives.
The hat was instant happy.
But, Louisiana’s keen on The Trinity so it just makes sense that, when talking Louisiana shops, I should add in a third: party stores. Yes, Louisiana party stores have the standard issue mylar balloons and packaged party favors but, from what I’ve seen of party stores across America so far, Louisiana’s one-up the rest of the country. The reason: Mardi Gras aisles. I dare you to go in one and walk out without a little sumpin’ sumpin’ purple, gold, and green or, when in Cajun country, shredded.
Last week I went to The Party Time Store in Lake Charles with six other perfectly reasonable adults but, within about 23 seconds, we’d all let our hair down–mostly so we could see how it looked in a gold wig or under an alligator chapeau or, in my case, topped off with a bright purple sparkly cowboy hat. (I felt a little bad for the one guy in our group–we were all acting like he was our personal Ken doll to dress up.) See, we had a Twelfth Night shindig to go to and while most of us were just beginners when it came to all things Mardi Gras, whatever they put in the roux down there had already worked its way into our DNA. Some of us Yankees had begun questioning the need to ever return north again. Or, even, of leaving the party store.
A krewe queen at the Twelfth Night presentation of courts in Lake Charles. That, of course, is no party store costume. Photo by Jenna Schnuer.
