excerpt #26 from,
"everyone's
favorite underdog"
my parents moved me to the middle of 'god-awful nowhere', just before my 4th grade year [i'm positive this uprooting and reasoning for it will be heard in the future]. anyway, i moved to a very small community during the height of my ignorance. i soon found out about the annual local beauty pageant and begged my parents into allowing me to compete. my parents were not into this type of thing, but they have always gotten weak in the knees for their little girl and for some reason were under the false pretense that i was the most beautiful thing in the world.
pretty quick i realized i was with some serious professionals- the girls had 'stay at home moms' that lived to age their little girls with spray tans, choreographers, weekly piano lessons and the whole lot. the moms took turns taking the judges to lunch, well, all moms except my full-time working mom.
i had to step it up a notch; i worked out my own routine to paula abdul's 'forever your girl'- i practiced before school and after my homework until i went to bed. mom took me down the hill to the swap meet for my pick of the frilliest wardrobe imaginable- my 'formal' was pink on pink, lace on lace- i mean, my dress was eaten by pink lace. and my outfit for my routine could have been donned by any one of those flygirls, easily.
anyway, this pageant was a big deal. HUGE deal- this was my coming out to all the new kids. hell, i never thought i'd have a chance at 'queen', but "best eyes"??- surely!
those girls competed with all of their little hearts...and man, i brought that shit!!- i would've done paula so proud!! and talk about the most perfect curled head of hair in your life!! (thanks mom, aerosol hairspray and rat combs)... and every single girl deserved some kind of award- and this turned out to be the idea: there were enough awards for EVERY girl to be awarded at least one- so that everyone was a winner and everyone was far from a loser. cause, you know, losing f*ing sucks at any age, but especially those first awkward years...
i remember the awarding like yesterday. one by one a girl got rewarded for something lame- and they'd stand in a nice and neat little row- wearing their sash so proudly. jeez, 11 of the 12 girls were standing and some of them started getting 2 awards, some of them 3, but i was still sitting. 'holy shit, i'm going to be crowned queen of this thing', i thought (maybe not exactly those words).. i mean, saving the best for last, right? wrong.
i was the only one, THEE ONLY little girl to not get a damn thing. the only thing i went home with were the flowers my mommy and daddy gave me and a vow to never compete again.
i had to step it up a notch; i worked out my own routine to paula abdul's 'forever your girl'- i practiced before school and after my homework until i went to bed. mom took me down the hill to the swap meet for my pick of the frilliest wardrobe imaginable- my 'formal' was pink on pink, lace on lace- i mean, my dress was eaten by pink lace. and my outfit for my routine could have been donned by any one of those flygirls, easily.
anyway, this pageant was a big deal. HUGE deal- this was my coming out to all the new kids. hell, i never thought i'd have a chance at 'queen', but "best eyes"??- surely!
those girls competed with all of their little hearts...and man, i brought that shit!!- i would've done paula so proud!! and talk about the most perfect curled head of hair in your life!! (thanks mom, aerosol hairspray and rat combs)... and every single girl deserved some kind of award- and this turned out to be the idea: there were enough awards for EVERY girl to be awarded at least one- so that everyone was a winner and everyone was far from a loser. cause, you know, losing f*ing sucks at any age, but especially those first awkward years...
i remember the awarding like yesterday. one by one a girl got rewarded for something lame- and they'd stand in a nice and neat little row- wearing their sash so proudly. jeez, 11 of the 12 girls were standing and some of them started getting 2 awards, some of them 3, but i was still sitting. 'holy shit, i'm going to be crowned queen of this thing', i thought (maybe not exactly those words).. i mean, saving the best for last, right? wrong.
i was the only one, THEE ONLY little girl to not get a damn thing. the only thing i went home with were the flowers my mommy and daddy gave me and a vow to never compete again.
