Showing your boobs for beads really isn’t worth it. This may seem obvious to an outsider. But let me explain something to you about Bead Fever. There’s something about the energy down there that makes an otherwise sane person desperately want plastic beads, the uglier, the more ostentatious, the better. It’s a bit like going to a party that has a gift bag and even though you know the gift bag is filled with crap — Chapstick, SweetTarts, a pen, etc. — you still really want that gift bag. I’ve often joked that even if I was to open a gift bag and discover a fossilized turd inside, I would be elated. “Loooook! A piece of hardened poo! So awesome!” It was with that same inexplicable enthusiastic desire for crap that I found myself, just once, showing my breasts to a guy standing on a balcony overlooking the French Quarter. Two days later, when it was time to pack up and head home, I left every single strand of beads in my hotel room trash can, including the ones I got in exchage for showing my nipples.