Pageants

In honor of this past weekend's festivities (Congrats to Miss Michigan), I present for you an essay on my own pageant experiences (factual liberties taken at random). Some of you have read this before, but for the humiliation alone it's worth a second pass, don't ya think? Had I the time to look for the photos I might even post a few images of the debacle, perhaps if Queen Mum ever gets her scanner working she can do you the favor of posting pictures of the hot pink cupcake dress...


I hate standing waiting in line for auditions. It’s like being in the wings watching the contestant before you do her talent program-- you just know you’re better than her, but it still makes you nervous to watch, you never know with those judges. I mean I was by far the best contestant in not one, but two preliminary pageants in the Miss North Carolina system, yet I managed to lose with flying colors. No seriously, I had the best talent, you can ask any one of my friends, and I was the smartest one there too- you tell me who else can use the word ‘existential’ to answer an unrehearsed question? No one, of course. But did the judges care—not in the least. Did that stop them from crowning a heifer with a bad dress—no it did not. All told, I suppose those pageants did help prepare me for my career, I mean you have to get used to judgement and rejection in New York, and I've been getting judged and rejected since age 3, and in a leotard and tights no less.

How do you know when it is time to get out of pageants? If you have stuffed yourself into a lavender one-piece bathing suit and rubber-cemented it to your behind, your shiny sausage thighs parading around on a stage six feet off the ground, and just as you turn around and reveal your ass in all it’s cellulite-glory to God and everyone, the music in the elementary school auditorium finally cues up, drowning out the obligatory hoots from your friends and family who are just trying to fill dead air (God bless ‘em) and the song is none other than The Backstreet Boys, “Larger Than Life,” This is the exact moment you know it’s time to get off the stage. Now there is a hierarchy in the talent category that goes unspoken in the pageant community: at the top are opera singers and classical violinists, followed by other instrumentalists, followed by belters, followed by ballerinas, and then the catch-all category comprised of cloggers, baton-twirlers, gymnasts and the other talent-disabled. Now make sure to note that the actual ability-level of the performers is not nearly as important as the category in which they perform, so a mediocre opera singer will trump a fabulous Broadway belter every time. So of course there was an opera singer in that pageant- end of story.

Now I am not stupid, by now I could see that these pageants weren’t working for me, but I knew I had to get out of the pageant business after the next one. Here I am in my hot pink chiffon dress looking for all the world like a rhinestone studded cupcake, singing my face off to “Nobody Does It Like Me,” and I bet they all thank God for that in the end, surrounded by the most hair sprayed, duct-taped, bra-padded bunch of over-grown homecoming queens you’ve ever seen, and never wanted to. Now, about the time we’re all lined-up on the stage and the local dance-teacher-turned-pageant-coordinator is announcing the runner-up, I look around and realize that they’ve called almost all the other girls for the runner-up prizes. They called the girl who sang her entire song in the key of B(e glad you weren’t there). They called the girl whose acrobatic ‘feat’ was not wearing a sports bra and then trying not to give herself a black eye while tumbling. Hell, the first runner-up was the girl who spent the first 30 seconds of her two-minute routine with interpretive glances, followed by hopping backwards across the stage on one toe-shoe.

Anyway, here I am on the back line with a girl who should be doing ‘before’ pictures for Jenny Craig and a tap dancer whose speech was about preventing eating disorders, though as her head was still too big for her body, I don’t think hers was quite licked. So, of course I’m looking around thinking, hey it’s just me, fatty and binge-purge over here, obviously I’ve won this thing, I mean really. So when fatty starts shrieking and crying and hugging everybody, I am a bit confused. Of course by this time, I am so over this whole pageant thing that I am off the stage and in my car on the way to some fried foods before Fatty’s even finished taking pictures. I know every loser,excuse me, runner-up says they crowned the wrong girl, but this time they actually did, and I mean they chased Fatty into the parking lot and snatched that crown right off that bitch’s head. It turns out that Miss Bulimia had won all along, which is not surprising as those sharing their own "triumph over adversity to better the lives of other young women" always have a leg up. It’s like there’s some special scoring system where extra points are awarded based on the severity of your hardship. Eating Disorder—add two points; Dead parent---four points; Bad nose job—half a point. If I had been at Miss America the year that deaf girl won, I would have just gone home from the get-go, because it is clear to me that I just do not have enough personal tragedy to win a pageant (an unfortunate choice in a purple lamee gown not withstanding).

As I peeled the duct tape off my breasts that night and put my push-up pads in a drawer, two things became very clear to me: 1) I was destined for greater things than cutting ribbons at every Wal-Mart grand opening in the tri-county area, and 2) I had to buy some boobs.

So, I packed up my tap shoes and my best sequined gowns and moved to the City. My neighbors thought I was crazy lugging all those dresses up the stairs, but they were worth their weight in silicone, after I hawked them, along with all my costume jewelry, a stereo and a VCR. But these babies were worth every penny. Everybody’s got their gimmick up here, some people have talent, I have tattahs. I am just certain they are going to push me to the front of the line, so far they’ve gotten me pushed in to the back of a few cabs, some bathroom stalls and a futon, but we’re still adjusting…I’ve only had them a few weeks.