The insanity we call "Parades"

Every year my community has a Christmas Light Parade. The community...businesses, churches, Scout groups, fire departments, community councils, etc...put lights on their trucks, their trailers, their boats...themselves!...and we have a sweet little parade...20 minutes start to finish. (Think about it...would YOU want to spend more than 20 minutes standing in the cold and snow to see a riding lawn mower with twinkle lights?!) My kids call it "tacky"...Sweetie and I call it FUN! Although we have noticed some odd behavior...especially this year. Which got me thinking about people and parades. We line up along both sides of the street and then clap for anything that passes by. A pack of Cub Scouts? Applause! Radio station van blasting "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer?" Hooray! Fire Engine honks its horn? Cheers and huzzahs! Now in every day, ordinary life...do we clap when we see a fire truck? or hear music? How odd! Then there's the waving. Now being Americans AND Westerners, we are by nature a friendly folk...known to smile and give a quick "let you cut into traffic" kind of wave. And yes, all females have, at least once, practiced the "elbow-elbow, wrist-wrist" beauty queen wave. But put folks on the side on a street with floats ambling by and they will wave at anything! It kind of ties in with the clapping. I guess the parade rules state that the quota of applause and waves must be of equal quantity and duration. And now for the grossest Parade Insanity of all...the thrown candy. Yes, this little community parade still follows the time-honored tradition of trying to run over small children with a float - all for the sake of a piece of taffy! I understand little kids excitement about getting sugar on the street...but Sweetie and I have also seen adults practically dive onto the asphalt to get a miniature candy cane. People, people, people...would you pick up a piece of candy that was laying on the ground in the hallway of a basketball stadium? Gross! But somehow all of the oil drippings, gas fumes and ice-melting chemicals that are on the street must make that precious taffy taste all that much better! So...what do you think? Do parades make people crazy? Well, I've gotta run...I've gotta go eat my little candy cane and rub my arms and hands...they're sore from all that waving and clapping!