Boulder and the Beautiful

Thanks to “Seinfeld,” there’s Festivus for the rest of us around Christmas, but what escape does a gal have from the stench of hard-boiled Easter eggs and the temptation of entire mammals carved out of chocolate, a cruel few weeks before swimsuit season starts?

Preaster, that’s what.

Pre-Easter Holi, or Preaster if you want to sound in the know, is a make-believe holiday that I celebrate with my Hindu friends before, after or in the general vicinity of Easter and the Hindu holiday of Holi.

Instead of the Festivus Feats of Strength, Preaster brings the Altering of Board Games. Hungry, Hungry Hippos is bedazzled, bestickered and mutilated. Twister is rewritten, using body parts like “solar plexus” and “sacrum” instead of the predictable “left foot.” Terrible, terrible things happen to Candyland and Jenga.

Instead of the Airing of Grievances, Preaster brings the Airing of Contradictions. Cristal champagne is sinfully consumed from cheap plastic cups and chased with PBR and (vegetarian) corndogs. Formal gowns with above-the-elbow gloves are worn to the diviest bar you can find (hint: Longmont) (duh), where the altered games are publicly played.

It’s an awful fake holiday, really. Very disgusting.

Is it a mockery of how society blindly follows traditions, such as hiding pink eggs in a field, with no understanding of the historical or religious symbolism? Oh, no. Preaster’s traditions have zero significance and were created via a few random text messages one day while I was unloading the dishwasher.

I am now hungover from corndogs (a sentence I wish I never had to say), and trying to recover from the experience of putting my solar plexus on blue, while keeping my latisimus dorsi on red.
I hope you all had a jolly Easter, Holi, generic Sunday or Preaster for the, er, beast of us.