One does not simply return to regular programming after carnival; here are some signs that you have just experienced the greatest festival on Earth.
1. You are sore, stiff and desperately in need of a massage and a good soak on Grand Anse beach. As a result you can’t walk the way God intended for a few days.
2. You’ve showered a million times just trying to remove oil, paint, and powder from your skin and those nooks and crannies (nails, ears, navel).
3. Your tan lines are in the pattern of your costume. Your skin is tender to the touch from the sunburn.
4. You generally feel like shit because you’ve barely slept in the last few days.
5. Your hair is messy and thirsting for a deep treatment. For the last few days it has been getting quick fixes, powder, paint, water, and heat from the sun.
6. The only music in your head is Soca. Nothing else matters. You sing songs based on the words you hear in conversations. But when you hear another genre that you like, it oddly feels like an ear massage.
7. You have new friends on your whatsapp list. Whether it’s from your last minute costume hunt or that sweet whine you got in J’ouvert, you’ve connected with a few new people and you feel accomplished.
8. You’re constantly checking social media and websites for pictures of you and your crew at parties and on the road. It’s a joy even to find yourself in the background of a picture. And of course, you’re ready to send a message to the page in case they’re unbecoming.
9. You daydream ever so often about those special moments that you wish you could relive in a heartbeat. Your concerned coworker asks if you’re okay.
10. Your body only recognises alcohol. What is this thing called water?
11. You missed your flight back home and you really don’t care because you’re interested in the next last lap fete anyway.
12. You feel a surge of carnival tabanca so you begin making plans for the next carnival. Why is it that the details are not up as yet, what is wrong with these people?