Beauty Pagent Catastrophe

Here’s a quick synopsis of my personality. I’m the girl in the cowboy boots and cow-crap stained pants behind the fence at the rodeo. I’m the girl in the beat up tennis shoes, holey jeans, and a baseball cap. I’m the one who climbs trees, builds houses - breaks things. I am a tomboy.

Enter character number two: a good friend of mine from the theater department at school. He’s the kind of guy that you would do anything for. One of those guys you just can’t say no to. He’s the teddy bear, the Bon Jovi fanatic, the I smell like Captain Black cigars and beef jerky and three in the morning McDonald’s runs guy.

Now enter the situation. The college was having its annual “Miss Wayland” pageant. This is a beauty pageant in which all of the clubs nominate a girl to represent them and then the girls battle in three areas (talent, question/platform, evening wear) to decide which of them represents the school for an entire year as Miss Wayland.

From the very beginning of the nominations, several clubs were trying to get their sticky little fingers on me for their representative. I remained strong. No way was I going to get up on stage and prance around in a dress and heels. That is until my friend from the theater department asked me to represent their club. A feeling of defeat swept over me. I couldn’t say no. And so I was launched headfirst into a foreign world of group dances, high heels and lots of giggling.

The big day came more quickly than I could have ever imagined. I had this great blue dress and a pair of beautiful silver heels, which I duct tapped firmly to my feet. And with those duct tapped shoes, everything went perfectly. That is, until the talent portion of the competition.

I was doing a monologue entitled The World’s Fastest Lawn Mower (complete with a turbine engine), playing the part of a journalist telling the story of her ride on said lawnmower. I was dressed perfectly in black pants, a white collared shirt and awesome black stiletto boots. It was fantastic. Until I sat on the very edge of my very lopsided and top heavy desk (the only prop I had) and it tipped up on its end, spilling me onto the floor in an uncoordinated mess. I recovered flawlessly and it would have looked part of the monologue had the stage crew not flooded the stage and turned the desk upright once again.

Needless to say, I was not voted that year’s Miss Wayland. I didn’t even get into the top ten. They wanted someone with poise and a certain grace about them. As I enjoyed my extra large piece of pepperoni pizza backstage while Miss Wayland was getting chosen, I decided that I didn’t mind losing that particular competition.