“I swear they were like THIS big!”
Tragedy can sometimes bring out the best in people.
Be it a simple fender bender on Route 5 in front of the KFC, or a natural disaster half way around the world, something that starts out so negatively can often bring people together in ways never imagined. Sometimes the human spirit can be an amazing thing.
(You’ll want to put the emphasis on sometimes when you read this bedtime story out loud tonight to little Mackenziiiiiiiieeeeee.)
True, tragedy can bring out the best in people. Unless that tragedy goes by the name Universal Royalty Grand Nationals.
Then it just brings out a Ramada Inn full of crazy.
This week TLC gave us another close up of that glittery, crystalized open wound they call Toddlers & Tiaras. You know the one. The one that sorta skeeves you out, but you keep looking at it anyway, as if doing so will make it heal faster. After swearing off the show last week, we’re all belly up to the bar for another serving of age inappropriate Active Wear and pre-school body waxing. And to make it more fun, let’s just say that T & T busted out (no pun intended but it works perfectly) some T & A.
The URGN (as it’s referred to on embroidered trucker caps and screen printed XXL t-shirts from Michael’s Craft Stores) is the Big Dawg in Pageant Land. People travel for miles from…well…the South again apparently, to get their chance at taking home the Grand Uno Supreme of Prizes. We are talking $10,000. Yeah, that much. I know, right?
To break it down for you: This Glitz Event is to Pageant Moms what NASCAR is to Pageant Moms’ bewildered husbands. In NASCAR the autos fill their tanks with premium gas then buzz around and around for what seems like hours doing nothing until a couple of them slam into walls, and then another one gets a humungous prize. In the equation, simply replace the autos with tiny overly processed, overly made-up, overly tanned little girls…replace the gas with Pixie Stix, and…well…you do the math. Someone in their wisdom also felt that the URGN should be opened up to girls slightly older than seven. And by slightly I mean something whacked like 25ish. Seriously.
How you judge a newborn preemie princess, still a little moist from delivery, which on the positive probably makes it easier to apply sequins, against a Hooters waitress busting out of her gown escapes me. And, let’s be honest, mesmerizes me a little bit. And where do you find an older retired male judge who likes both little girls and big girls? That’s a chore in itself. Who has the time for that?
The URGN had the oddest assortment of glamazons on cable blowing kisses for the money load and the chance to cram one of those Empire State Building sized floor lamp trophies into a Ford pick up. They should totally glue gun a pink King Kong on the top of that trophy, just for some grins. Honestly, when all the contestants from newborn to Hooters were on stage at the same time it looked like a sparkly version of Darwin’s Evolution poster. The roster went from #38 in a D cup all the way down to #2 in a Pampers. (Think about that for a minute. Hilarious.)
Can you keep a secret? One of my favorite parts of every T & T pageant is always the “what the contestants want to be when they grow up” ramble during the aimless deer in a headlight stage wandering. Our 23ish year old wanted to grow up and be a Mortician. Hold up. One, you are already grown up, sister. Really grown up. And out. And Two…how exactly do you make that smooth transition from beauty pageants to elderly cadavers? I guess it beats working at the Playboy Mansion to the same end result. Props for the honesty. Your closest challenger’s goal was simply to sit up for longer than 30 seconds before her enormous head tipped her back into the crib guard.
And so it went. During Crowning, all ages rushed the stage like Lion King hyenas circling Simba.
When the Hooter girl took top prize and stuffed $10,000 worth of tips into her jar, you did not want to be anywhere near the Baby Mommas. They were smack talking about cellulite and how you can’t put their pretty preschoolers up against someone in their 20s. And the judges were all picking favorites. All while their little angels sucked on the longest Pixie Stix I’ve ever seen. You could totally poke an eye out with one of those things if they weren’t protected behind two sets of false lashes and half a stick of liner. I guess that is what you get when you open these things up to everyone from those who can’t digest solids, to those who eat paste to those who don’t eat anything so they’ll look good at their Doctorate Graduation.
(Ok, I couldn’t even type Doctorate with a straight face.)
The Positive: The expanded age bracket gave the little tykes proof that there were a lot of years still ahead for them in the world of pageants.
The Negative: The expanded age bracket gave the little tykes proof that there were a lot of years still ahead for them in the world of pageants.
