Dallas Mavericks Riotless Parade

"This is going to be bad-ass," the blond girl said to me as I pressed into her from behind. The parade crowd was already 14 deep and it was getting hot. We craned our necks looking for the first sign of Mark Cuban's gold-trophy ventriloquist doll or Dirk's shaggy hair. She smelled like shampoo and I smelled like beer. I was ready for action.

Fast-forward two-and-a-half hours. I'm bored, disappointed and sitting on a storm drain surrounded by parade garbage. My blonde has evaporated. I reach into my front pocket and pull out a damp sheet of folded paper. I shake my head, just as I'm doing now a week later, because I can't believe Dallas actually pulled off a parade without burning down a few square miles or knifing two dozen people in the pancreas. What a rip-off. I thought Dallas had more mayhem in its soul. Most good cities do.

I thought we wouldn't get the Mavs' lead float in the barn without at least a few guys shooting each other or drunk college kids exchanging STDs in front of curious families. That's what celebrations look like. At least in my family. I was itching to go lawless as I stood behind that girl. I went to the parade just to become one of the people you'd see on the news later that night screaming and holding a fire hydrant over his pepper-sprayed head. I kept thinking, "Surely, one of these 200,000 sweating idiots will start some [expletive] and then I can let it all hang out." But it never happened. Everyone was happy and respectful and, for the most part, hydrated.

Come on, Dallas. You missed a gilded opportunity at parade immortality. It's not every day you get paper-thin justification to act like you're in Detroit. Our team won it all. Time to create insurance claims, not good will in the form of high fives and bro hugs.
I unfolded the sheet of paper and looked at it.

Kevin's Parade Mayhem To-Do List:

• Throw rocks through storefront windows.
• Torch a cop car.
• Overturn a city bus.
• Torch my own car.
• Call insurance company about car.
• Overturn porta-potty, releasing Mavericks blue onto street.
• Set off firecrackers in congested areas.
• Create pedestrian bottlenecks by setting up fake barricades; mug people.
• Stab a stranger.
• Stab my friends.
• Stab wildly into the air.
• Make love to a police officer.
• Overturn a motorcycle.
• Overturn a bicycle.
• Overturn Roe v. Wade.
• Stab the green building.
• Tell Dirk I love him with baby alligators attached to my nipples.
• Parachute into parade wearing superhero outfit.
• Stop parade through forced lactation.

I pulled out a pen and put a check mark by the alligator one. Then I eased two small alligators into the storm drain and walked home. Go Rangers.