I need my pageant fix real bad, dude. Got a good HoJo?
Know where I can score a quick $700 Cupcake Dress?
Am I trippin’? Did she just say Princess? For real?
Gimme the good Supreme stuff or I’ll cut you.
I feel like I just watched an ABC Afterschool Special on why drugs are bad.
Except instead of the old shows that explained why kids should stay clean, stay in school and join the Glee Club, we just got schooled on why some parents need a complete detox.
Toddlers & Tiaras was back with another episode of face plants and head spins as we witnessed some really wobbly pretty feet and a Pageant Mom meltdown of epic proportions.
This week we learned that pageants are like drugs, complete with crazy (sparkle, baby) highs, hot flashes and pixie stix munchies. We also learned that coming down off that high ain’t pretty. Like it’s mad trippin’ dude, and gettin’ clean can mess you up.
The whole thing, like any good drug addiction, started off fairly simply and low key.
Overly excited Dana the Director introduced us to the Island Of Dreams Go Glitz Pageant in Lansing, Michigan where all the pint sized Glamazons would be converging to compete for another Uber Goober Grand Supreme something something title.
Unless you are an actual preschool child or own one, the full prize title is never as important as the process itself. All I really know is that the winner gets an abnormally enormous crown that never fits their head. Other than that, someone should probably explain the details to me at some point.
Regardless of rules or head size, Mom Kelly is determined to get 23 month old Natalie that enormous crown at any cost. Emphasis on the any cost part, because Kelly believes that there should never be a cap on spending when it comes to pageants. She proudly presents her offspring and explains that on stage she is a diva, and off stage she is spoiled.
How she can differentiate between the two personalities when the little niblet is barely 23 months old and in a constant state of Runny Nose, is beyond me. On and off the stage all Natalie knows how to do is eat, poop and fall down a lot.
A lot.
And say NO to every question that she is asked.
She’s a cutie though, with that terminally snotty button nose and crazy hair that looks like a birthday clown just rubbed a balloon on it until it stood straight up with static.
Kelly sets the stage for this week by explaining how pageants are just like drugs. You do drugs to get high. You do pageants because you are already high.
No wait…I got that wrong.
She said you do pageants because you want to win and get high. Or get that high you get from winning or something. Or get high at the pageant. Or you just want to win. I forget.
Natalie’s hair was messing up my cable reception so I might have missed the last part of her conversation.
While Kelly was rolling pixie stix in the basement, we met Samara and her mom Ally. Heavy metal rocker chicks, or as heavy metal as a two year old can be and still fall into the Teletubbies demographic.
Mom is a former Christian Heavy Metal Band performer, covered head to toe in ink. Despite her mom being a tattoo canvas, Samara is your typical little pageant girl but with an oddly grown up face. Still cute, but not the typical baby face that the creepy male judges comment on when asked how the competition looks this time around.
Mom is really level headed and is already instilling a “do the best you can and that’s good enough” kind of direction to her daughter’s pageant career. Nice to see. She still likes that two fingered rebel rocker salute and can probably do a mean Gene Simmons tongue lick, but TLC must have cut that last part out of the episode.
Just when I was about to write off this team as too tame for TLC, Chookey materialized.
Chookey is Samara’s nickname. Somehow over time, Chookey has manifested herself as a potentially socially awkward second personality. Great for Reality TV. Not so good for pageant scores or first dates.
When Chookey randomly appears, pretty feet and finger kisses go away and they are replaced with spazzy Liberace piano fingers and Westminster Dog Show circle laps. Seriously. Chookey starts wailing on the imaginary ivories and then makes loops around the stage. At that point, Mom just sits back and lets it all happen. Chookey is unstoppable.
Also unstoppable is Crazy Pageant Grandma Debbie and her granddaughter Cadence. Debbie is the self proclaimed Ultimate Glitz Grannie, and is way more into the pageant scene than Cadence’s Mom, so she has taken the reigns of this project. She does the wigs, picks the photos, runs the rehearsals and is in complete denial that her pre-menopausal hot flashes are a sign of things to come and always blames the hotels for being too hot during pageant days. It’s ok, Grandma…it happens. Embrace it.
At least she is handling it better than Natalie handles her spray tans.
Have you ever tried to wash a cat in the bath tub?
That’s pretty much how it all goes down in the living room as Kelly and Dad try to paint roll their 23 month old daughter inside a home made garbage bag spray booth.
Seriously, they must have to let the neighbors know ahead of time that they are going to be darkening their kid, because otherwise Child Services and the Sheriff would be called in before the first coat even dries.
Natalie screams and cries and tries to put herself out of all this misery by licking wet tanning drips as Dad rolls her out like he’s doing the garage siding. It gets to the point where Kelly has to make it clear that she doesn’t feel this is child abuse. Football is child abuse because you send your kid out to specifically get hurt. Pageants are fun.
You could barely hear what she was saying over Natalie’s screaming and nose boogie bubbles. The last time I heard that kind of screeching was in a Steven King movie and two people walked out before the good part.
Luckily Samara’s Dad was far enough away in Afghanistan and couldn’t hear Natalie’s screaming over the heavy artillery. He was on Skype to wish her well and watch her do rebel rocker fingers. I guess Chookey doesn’t go online too much.
Even though Cadence didn’t have a tanning fit, she was forced to stand frozen in the tub like a mannequin until her own coat of brown dried. It must have been hot in the bathroom as well, because Debbie was getting very irritable and started barking orders at Cadence during the drying process. Don’t breath. Don’t put your arms down. Don’t make wrinkles and creases in the color. Don’t look over here. Look over there. Why are you looking over here I told you to look over there. That kind of thing. Debbie needs an iced tea.
As Kelly preps for her pageant high, Natalie’s $700 dress arrives.
Kelly doesn’t like losing. Anything lower than Supreme is losing. And anything lower than Supreme means that you didn’t spend enough.
The $700 dress explains why there was no furniture in the room. Seriously. None.
And then the dress didn’t even fit. I know, right?
It was too short and Natalie’s Huggies were showing underneath. And to top it off, the arm wraps were too tight and were squishing all of Natalie’s baby fat up into her elbows. And apparently pushing all the tears out her eyes, and bubbles out her nose again, as well. Kelly was none too pleased.
One. All the kid does is eat. Two. Chill. She’s a baby. She’s supposed to have baby fat. Just by the glassy junkie stare on Kelly’s face, you could tell that this whole thing was not going to end well.
By the time everyone made it to Lansing, Kelly was a mess. Her pageant drugs were not mixing well in her system. Debbie was hot and insisting that the judges would play favorites with the local girls. Ally was still the rebel rocker, and Chookey was nowhere to be seen.
Yet.
Now I’m no pageant authority.
Well, maybe I am sorta kinda now, thanks to TLC (…which I will deny in court…) but the Island of Dreams Pageant had THE most ghetto fab stage ever seen on the circuit. It probably cost…I don’t know…whatever a Martha Stewart pink king size top sheet costs at Kmart. And then add two inflatables from iParty Warehouse and one color copy dorm poster from Staples Print Center.
What’s that come to? $34 and some change, maybe?
It was bad. And Debbie figured that one out as soon as she walked in the ballroom. That, and it was too hot.
Not only did they have the lamest stage in the history of all pageantry, they also changed the rules.
In the normal pageant world, if there is such a thing, if you get a smaller weenier title at the end during crowning…you are done. Thanks for coming. Drive safely. You can pack the van now.
But the Island people wanted to shake things up, and surprise everyone. So the dealio here was that everyone gets something and then even if you already have something you may get something bigger. (Did you follow that?)
Don’t worry if you didn’t. Neither did Kelly.
When Natalie gets a Princess title, which falls below Supreme in the Kelly Loser Grading System, Kelly goes completely A List Bonkazoid. She blows a pixie stix nutty. She flips out in a classic TV moment that is sure to be on the Bonus Extras Director Cut DVD.
The crown probably stuck to Natalie’s head just from sheer static…no clips needed…but that is beside the point.
Kelly storms out of the ballroom, flings all Natalie’s prizes and glue gunned trinkets onto the floor and the wall and goes completely drug junkie looney tunes. Girl is having some bad pageant withdrawals, and the detox is so bad that she doesn’t even realize that they’re playing by different rules in Lansing. It took two of her buddies to talk her down, and even then she refused to go back into the ballroom.
Nothing else really mattered after that.
Drugs are bad.
Pageant Moms on a pageant high are even worse…but it makes for some great TV.
Know where I can score some fresh pixie stix this time of night?
I can quit if I want to.