Here in south Louisiana, it’s Mardi Gras time – traditionally a time of somber penance and sacrifice.

Oops! My error! I must have gotten Mardi Gras mixed up with Lent. No, Mardi Gras is not a time for penance and sacrifice, but is traditionally a time for merriment, drinking, breast-bearing, public urination, and all other possible forms of human debauchery – and for good reason: The day after Mardi Gras begins the actual period of penance and sacrifice – forty days and forty nights without football.

There has been much debate about the origins of Mardi Gras. Most historians believe that we owe its inception to the Ancient Romans. This makes sense, as the average Ancient Roman considered drunken revelry not just an occasional diversion but, in fact, a way of life.

Other scholars give the Ancient Greeks credit for both Mardi Gras and the original Party Naked T-shirt. Still others argue that Mardi Gras has its origins with the Ancient Geeks, who observed an annual pagan festival in which they danced through the streets of Athens in their togas and threw pocket protectors to the crowd. The contributions of the Ancient Egyptians, who invented beer, should also not be overlooked.

The French-Canadian explorer Pierre Le Moyne Sieur (“Pierre the Big Sewer”) d’Iberville is generally credited with bringing Mardi Gras to the New World. On Mardi Gras Day in 1699, Iberville was sailing up the muddy Mississippi, south of present-day New Orleans, with an “I’d Rather Be Sailing the Mediterranean” bumper sticker on the back of his boat, when he came upon a band of Indians on the batture. In the spirit of the season, he tossed several cheap trinkets to the Indians, who immediately ceded all of the Louisiana Territory and most of Florida to France.

This is generally considered the first observance of Mardi Gras in Louisiana, and, in fact, it set the standard for all subsequent parades in the state, that being: You can’t have a parade of any kind in Louisiana, whether it be for Mardi Gras, Christmas, or St. Patrick’s Day, unless you have “throws.” I don’t care if you have a Bullwinkle balloon the size of New Hampshire in your parade. You’d better have something to throw to the crowd. Even the Pope would know better than to parade around Louisiana in his Popemobile without bringing a truckload of rosaries to heave to the clamoring rabble. (“Throw me something, Your Holiness!”)

With the advent of organized religion, Mardi Gras became tied to Lent, a time when Catholics traditionally abstain from meat on Fridays. But even the most devout Catholic will admit that meatless Fridays are no longer much of a sacrifice, when you have the option of eating fried catfish served on a bed of steamed rice topped with crawfish etouffee. Lent was different when I was a child, when my mother served us frozen “fish sticks” for dinner, which could best be described as an unsavory fish product. Ever since then, in my mind, fish sticks = penance. I’m surprised fish sticks have never been used in the confessional. (“Your penance is three Hail Marys and five fish sticks.”)

Fortunately, St. Patrick, the Patron Saint of Green Beer, was born smack-dab in the middle of Lent, so we will all have an opportunity to break out of our Lenten doldrums on March 17 and raise a brewski in honor of dear ole Saint Pat.

In the meantime, let’s all have a safe and happy Mardi Gras. But all the safety precautions in the world won’t prevent the occasional freak accident, like what happened to my beautiful wife Rosa during last year’s Mardi Gras.

A handful of doubloons had been thrown her way. Rosa was bending over to pick up a doubloon that had fallen on the sidewalk when the man standing in front of Rosa back-pedaled to pick up a doubloon thrown between his legs. (PLEASE! THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE SQUEAMISH OR EASILY OFFENDED, DO NOT READ THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH!) Well, when Rosa bent over, the man in front of her suddenly, without warning, and with grossly negligent disregard for the safety of those behind him, backed up and rear-ended poor Rosa, who ended up cheek-to-cheek, facially speaking, with the opposite end of the cheek spectrum.

Luckily, the guy in front was your average “Joe Six-Pack,” and most of the beers he had drank over the years had been retained by his body in the form of puffy buttal deposits, so the impact was the equivalent of walking face-first into a waterbed. Rosa walked away with only minor injuries, although the force of the impact left the imprint of her sunglasses on the bridge of her nose.

But let’s not concern ourselves right now with a freak accident like that. Next you’ll be worrying about the effects of toxic runoff from all those pink flamingos in your front yard! Relax! Tests on laboratory mice show no serious side effects from prolonged exposure to pink flamingos, other than a temporary loss of inhibitions and moderate to severe bouts of eccentricity.

I leave you with two suggestions that will hopefully make this an enjoyable Fat Tuesday for you and those revelers around you. First, although any beads thrown within twenty feet of you are normally considered “fair game,” this does not extend to throws that can only be obtained by stepping on someone’s hand or face, unless that person is at least tall enough to ride Space Mountain at Disneyworld. Second, and most importantly, don’t be a tailgater! When attending a parade, always allow at least four butt lengths between you and the person in front of you.