Mardi Gross

My alumni association hosts an annual party for Mardi Gras. It's one of the major events we have each year. Also, it is a formal thing. OK, well not formal-formal, but women wear cocktail dresses, and men wear suits (except for the hand full who always show up in tuxedos). I feel like I have to express this because people hear "Mardi Gras" and think "Show your tits!" It's not by any means a boobie-flashing kegger.

Fred and I went to the same college, so sometimes he shows up at alumni events. He showed up to the Mardi Gras party a couple of years ago (we were broken up at the time) and hilarity ensued. I've mentioned before that Fred cannot behave himself in public and often finds a way to make even the most mundane public events excruciatingly humiliating. Well, this time he really outdid himself.

Sure, there were moments where I felt embarrassed for him that night. His loud, brutish behavior, his date's wardrobe malfunction. But the crown jewel of the night was something I did not find out about until much later.

The venue at which the party takes place is a beautiful townhouse/gallery with a lot of history. The decorations have an early-American feel in line with the history of the place (so Washington!). It has several heavy wooden tables, bookcases and desks. Well, Fred decided that the furniture was too pretty to just look at. So he rummaged one of the desks and discovered a digital camera in one of the drawers. He decided to have some fun.

First he (or someone else) took pictures of him smiling and giving the camera the middle finger. How nice. Then, he decided that was not enough and took the camera to the bathroom and proceeded to take pictures of his junk. Seriously. He found a strange camera and decided to take pictures of his penis. Nothing I can say here will add to this.

He returned the camera to its location, leaving the elderly groundskeeper (to whom the camera belonged) to discover it later. And I'm sure he thought he would get away with it too. But, since he was smart enough to take face pictures first, it was really easy to identify him. The hand in the penis picture had a sleeve that matched his jacket in the face picture. Dumbass.

I hope he gave up self-portraiture for Lent.