If I made a list of the top ten things that I hate most in the world, parades would probably be somewhere between ISIS and Red’s Apple Ale. I have never been to a parade that was even remotely worth the effort of getting there and yes, I have been to that Macy’s Thanksgiving bullshit.
Break down a parade for what it is: a line of six-year-old Mustang convertibles, a shitty middle school marching band and police officers sweating their asses off walking three miles in July with a bullet proof vest on and twenty pounds of gear. I’ve read legal documents that were more entertaining than even the best part of a parade.
It’s not just the sheer boredom of a parade that makes them suck. If you live in a part of town that the parade moves through at 1.5 miles an hour, then you are deemed immobile for the duration of the event. I work at a pizza place downtown and our deliveries were consistently late because of the Big Rapids High School Homecoming Parade. By the way, this parade followed the Crossroads Charter Academy Homecoming Parade a week earlier, which followed the Ferris Homecoming Parade. Three parades? If you are going to have useless parades just do them all at once!
“Oh, Kip, think of the children, they love parades!” No, kids hate parades, they just love candy. How about the kids’ parents just buy them a Snickers and let them keep playing Doodle Jump on their iPads. Honestly, the kids just sit there and text until a float with candy comes by and then they elbow other kids out of their way so they can get a microscopic Milky Way, also known as “fun size.”
My older sister lives in Chicago. She knows better than anyone the absolute nuisance parades can be. She has to put up with the parades that are louder, more colorful and more of a disturbance than Big Rapids could even try to handle.
Now, I am not an unreasonable man, I will come around to like parades if they make these three simple changes:
— Lose the middle school band and hire a half way decent rock band.
— Host the parade on a country road just five or 10 miles outside of town.
— Double the speed of the floats so we can bang this thing out in 20 minutes.