Editor’s note: The Press-Register holds exclusive global rights to reportage of the Masked Observer, a mysterious denizen of the leisure class who covers the local Mardi Gras scene.

Anyone who follows this Carnival cortege’s exploits from season to season knows that despite her title of social secretary, we all really work for Floral Headpiece. Which finds the Masked One and Dark Hallway spending most Lenten seasons on Goat Island cursing Felix, Elexis and all the other gods as to why we ever let her talk us into trading slumber for sunrises during Mardi Gras.

Maybe its her elan, or her signature intractability, but where she leads, we follow. And her spirit has spread like wildfire in the early days of Carnival. When she strode into the Mobile Convention Center for the Order of Osiris’ 42nd annual indoor cavalcade, not even Headpiece could imagine what she’d brush against though the evening. Dark Hallway took it as an early sign when, in the remarkably sparse drink line, he overheard a couple lamenting the lack of “make-out spots.” So they decided to nibble on each other while waiting for their rum and Cokes.