Seriously? That Alaska chick again?
Friends, family and your health are so highly overrated nowadays.
I smell ‘em, Pa. They’re out there. Bugs. Bees…and Biebers.
I meant Facial Beauty and Free Puppies. Duh.
Trust me honey, you ain’t alone on that one.
Well, sheeeoooooot y’all.
It’s time to load up your tanning gun, snap on that flipper and mosey them pretty feet down to the Circle City Wild West Showdown, cuz there’s trophies and crowns and that nervous little Taco Bell dog all yours for the takin’!
That’s right. Toddlers & Tiaras went Western this week and it was everything you would expect, complete with more glitter than Porter Wagoner’s Opry jacket and enough inappropriately naughty Cowgirls to start a brawl at any pre-school saloon.
And to add to the tension, the Showdown pitted three kinda sorta long distance BFFs against each other…and then topped off that sparkly dessert with yet another appearance by that scene-chewing piece of arrogance better known as pageant girl Alaska.
Pageant Director Max Mason, best known for his receding faux hawk and amazingly perfect porn name, got us all wound up from the start by showing off the shaking little bug eyed puppy that the lucky Ultimate Face winner gets to take home as a prize and then housebreak.
Trust me…nothing makes me want to enter a pageant more than the potential to win a freakishly over-sized crown and then have to go home and clean up nervous chihuahua pee.
Where do I sign up?
Max was the only other one I was worried about wetting the floor, because that dude was seriously excited about this pageant. Not to get ahead of myself, but by the time he was reading off the winners at the end of the Showdown, I’m pretty sure I saw one of the judges put newspaper down under the podium. But more on that later, if you make it through all this…
First off we got to meet 8 year old Spacy Jacy and her Mom Gina.
Jacy was a little tightly wound and couldn’t sit still for a second. I’m fairly certain that she was supposed to have been born as twins, but something happened and she ended up as one kid with enough personality for two. Since I don’t actually have access to any medical records, there is a good chance I could be making some of that up, but regardless, Jacy was a hoot. Two hoots, actually. In order to make room in her tiny body for all that personality, something else had to give. And it was focus. But you can’t have everything.
She shimmied in her Peace Sign groovy chick outfit, demonstrated so many voices and hand jives that I lost count, and generally just made me smile. Mom needs to strap a monitor bracelet on her ankle soon just to keep track of where she is headed next.
Then we were off to meet 8 year old Daisey Mae and her Mom Amanda, who was either Mother of the Year or on sedatives. If it’s the latter, I want to know where she gets the good stuff, because Amanda was redoinkulously calm in the middle of what can only be described as khaos. Yes. Chaos with a “K” it was so Krazy.
Now I know I’ve used this analogy before, but it’s so perfect for this house that I’m going to recycle.
Have you ever been on a plane when it’s about to land and the change in cabin pressure makes all the babies wake up and start crying at the same time?
Replace the stewardess with Amanda, replace a full coach seating section with Amanda’s house and then put in your ear plugs, pull down the oxygen mask and enjoy.
I don’t really know how many kids she has. I don’t even think she really knows anymore.
It was wall to wall…to wall…kids.
And crying kids and kids screaming and babies throwing Cheerios and one kid with his head stuck in the couch cushions and another one scooting around in one of those baby scooting wheelie things.
She told us that she had 8 brothers and sisters, but yet when they ran through the opening credits montage like we were watching the TLC Brady Bunch, it only came up to 7 kids total. Even when you filled the middle spot that used to be for Alice.
There was also a photo that was ready to fall out of a frame at any second, which also had less than 8 kids. So I’m not sure if they can’t do math, or if the missing kid(s) were still back in the couch cushions…I don’t know.
But it was a lot of kids. That’s the short version of the story.
Daisey Mae was so chilled and calm that it was almost a medically induced coma. Like a Star Trek Borg.
We will Assimilate. And Sparkle.
She had a great grin when she hit the stage, but the lack of attention that she receives at home seemed to have sucked the smile muscles out of her face. There’s only so much quality time you can get when you’re just one pickle in the barrel, I guess.
She addressed the lack of attention, and then proceeded to declare that Facial Beauty is the most important thing in Life.
I’m gonna leave that one to the parents and the counselors, thank you. Not touching it.
Besides, we have bugs to squash.
Over at 5 year old Bridgett’s house, she and Mom Amanda#2 were goin’ huntin’ in the backyard for some bugs and worms. Slimy ones, little ones, medium sized ones and the biggest, slimiest worm of all…Justin Bieber.
Turns out that when Bridgett is not finger kissing and making that Taylor Swift up and around heart shaped thing over her head, she is in her Carhartt garage mechanic coveralls looking for things to kill. She wants to be the world’s first triple threat pageant princess/exterminator/destroyer of all teen heart throbs.
When pressed on what member of the food chain she wanted to kill next, she set her sights on Justin and it all got dark for a second.
For being only 5, Bridgett has really raked in the crowns. So much so that Mom had to start hanging them from the ceilings in what can only be described as a one room Liberace Planetarium. After the sun goes down, with nothing but the glow from a Hello Kitty nightlight, that room must be like an acid trip. A faaaaaaaaabulous acid trip.
All three contestants knew each other and seemed to be friends, and were also all being coached by Katie Boyer from Katie’s Kuties, the home of Pageant Winners and BeDazzled logo tees.
(Side note: I figured Katie must be a pageant girl herself so I Googled it to be sure, figuring that just this once I could try giving you accurate information. She is. And honey, the music on one of the websites is so loud it woke up at least ten of the Daisey Mae babies. For real. Turn it down…it’s not worth going deaf just for a puppy.)
Anyway.
Daisey Mae lived 6 hours away from the studio, so she Skyped her coaching via a laptop, which was kind of like watching someone in Iraq pretend to wear a cupcake dress while enemy artillery rained down around them. But again…it is for a puppy.
Locally, Bridgett stopped ripping worms in half long enough to practice a little, and Spacy Jacy demonstrated the youtube planking fad on some folding chairs. Later on she also had a photo shoot that brought out another couple of voices when she discussed playground paparazzi and how VERY pretty she felt. She almost drowned out Katie’s website.
But not even for a puppy will that girl focus.
Packing for Pageant Day was a sight to behold in all three households.
Daisey Mae’s entire…entire…family follows her to every pageant like Aerosmith groupies, all crammed into a Scooby-Doo van packed with diaper wipes and Tupperware containers. Any bets on how many times they have gotten to the first toll booth before realizing that a few kids were still on the front lawn or that the baby car seat was on the roof?
I bow to Amanda and her organizational skills. Full disclosure…her voice made me chuckle, and she swears a lot which is a wicked pissah…but she can organize the crap out of that Khaos. I salute you.
When they all made it to the Ramada, Max had already soaked one set of newspapers, and word was already out on the street that the self proclaimed Pageant Diva herself…Alaska…was there gunning for their Western crowns.
You will remember, as one of the Top Dawgs in the Glitz Globe right now, Alaska had recently begun trying out both a new hairstyle and a new arrogant attitude. She roared back earlier this season proudly proclaiming her fierce-ness and general better than you-ness, much to the chagrin of many. For those of you who do not commit my every word to memory, feel free to read all about it here….I’ll wait till you come back.
As always, the makeup rooms were a hot mess.
Spacy Jacy was MIA for the Beauty portion, which set off more alarms than a leak at a nuclear plant. As everyone tried to put her together in the hotel room, she cracked under pressure and started to cry, which undid a lot of the spackle that was just applied. For a young girl she had already mastered the soap opera kleenex dab under her lower lashes, so as not to smear the goop.
After running and crying and crying and running all the way to the stage, Jacy turned it on and worked the judges, even though points had to be deducted.
Daisey Mae actually smiled. That was nice. For the first time since this show began five seasons ago, the room was actually filled with no empty chairs, thanks to her 25 brothers and sisters and two hitchhikers they picked up at the city line. Team Daisey all the way!
As each girl graced the stage, Cowboy Max (…who refused to wear the cowboy hat that was right in front of him on the podium because it would flatten his faux hawk…) would smooooothly announce…”As we stop to admire Macaroon…she has lovely brown hair and blue eyes…..”
Stopping to admire a little girl in makeup? All I could picture was a dirty old man slowing his Buick down as he’s passing a school bus stop.
Cowboy Max needs a new catch phrase, asap.
Then it was Wild West Wear time.
Bridgette pulled the Q-tip out of her nose in time to rock her pink Cowgirl Couture. She also called out her own Mom for being “so jealous to me,” which in 5 year old exterminator talk means that Mom wishes she was up there on stage. Well that ain’t gonna happen, lady. Suck it. That’s what that meant in 5 year old exterminator talk. I looked it up.
Jacy blew the doors off her red barn prop and line danced around in what appeared to be her 4th of July parade costume. Unfortunately she forgot to take off her denim jacket before she got on stage, and the judges made a note.
Daisey Mae smiled again and then ripped her own skirt off which was so unexpected that it woke up a few more of her brothers and sisters.
When the awards came around, Bridgett didn’t get called, which in PageantLand means you get pulled for a higher title.
I’ll be honest. When her Mom said that “Pulling Out Is Always A Good Thing,” I spit my drink out though my nose and immediately began the process of putting that line on a t-shirt.
Coming soon to a skeevy corner store near you.
Then some kids won some stuff.
Jacy ended up winning Grand Supreme even though she didn’t make it to the stage on time, which made Amanda#1 swear again.
The evening was capped off by Alaska scoring the Ultimate Face title, snatching up the Taco Bell dog like it was candy and instantly BitchMorphing into a mini Paris Hilton. She clutched that sissy dog like she was trying to sneak through an airport with drugs and told all the other girls to give her some space.
Alaska completely dissed her supposed friend Daisey Mae, which made DM feel lousy and made me want to write something nasty on someone’s Facebook wall.
But even Cowgirls get sleepy when they’re out past their bedtime, so everyone headed out of Dodge before sunset.
Mark my words, Sheriff…they’ll be back. Nobody takes their puppy and lives to tell the story.
