$500 should get me across the border and away from these people.
Daughter sparkle like Kremlin star and still she loser.
I know that bitch is not lip synching Shirley Temple.
On the Good Ship Hoochie Bop Lollipop.
She said it. I didn’t.
Dear Mr. Kissinger:
I would like to personally apologize on behalf of the United States for one NutWad Pageant Mom single handedly dismantling a large portion of your work on détente with the Soviet Union and very nearly ending our relationship with not just Russia, but the even more important Universal Royalty Pageant as well.
It goes without saying that both are extremely crucial to the success of not just modern civilization itself, but also the cupcake dress industry and the residual checks for that guy who designed the Amber Alert signs in shopping malls.
I’m sorry that Toddlers & Tiaras unleashed such an import crate full of noodle on America this week.
But thank gawd they did, because that was some serious train wreck TV that I just sat through, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
It was Old Hollywood Glam Time as another pageant rolled through the south like a twister heading to a mobile home park. And it was a big un’, as Miss Annette explained.
Grand prize for winning the Ultimate Deep Dish Sumthin Sumthin crown was $10,000.
Yeah. Ten with a bunch of zeros after it. Just for pretty feet and a finger kiss or two.
Shut the front trailer door.
When I heard $10,000 I contemplated yanking my own front teeth out with a pair of Craftsmen pliers and buying myself a flipper. I was even going to pay for overnight shipping. Hell, yeah.
Beauty hurts, but trust me…10 Grand takes some of the pain out of getting eye lash glue on your retina.
The first little tyke down Sparkle Street was 6 year old Isys.
Seriously. Like the Saturday morning Superhero chick but spelled even whackier. Without even hearing Mom speak, you already knew that this little girl was branded with that name so she could be guaranteed some form of star status down the road.
Mom Erika proudly admits that whatever it takes is whatever it takes to win. That includes prepping her daughter for greatness even though she is coming down with a head cold, and making her go on stage without her foggy substantially lensed glasses.
Mom laughs a little when she mentions that last one, in that odd way that implied it would be funny if she fell off the edge of the stage, but not really funny. Well, maybe just a little. That kind of laugh.
Even with her ill fitting glasses, Isys and her SuperPowers were apparently not able to read the label on the back of the cold medicine box, because right out of the gate it seemed as though she was already tanked up on the kind of meds that makes you sleepy.
Luckily at age 6 the chances of her operating heavy equipment are pretty slim, but walking across a wobbly Holiday Inn banquet room stage can’t be much easier. Already you could tell that she stood a better chance of riding a John Deere down Main Street than she did at taking home 10 Grand.
While Isys was fogging up her specs and coughing up her chest cold, 4 year old Mia was buried in her storage room/bedroom full of trophies. Mom Mariana was a meltdown just waiting to happen, and she
Brought over from Russia as part of some mail order bride blind date love connection, Marina was all about pageants and making her daughter number one. She was also all about Keeling Moose and Squirrel as she talked to us in a subtitled Russian accent that was thicker than Isys’s glasses. She explained that years ago her husband Ray had been in the mood for a Russian bride, and knew someone who knew someone who got them to do some dirty Skyping or something, and then the next thing you know…married in America. She also had what I thought was poor vision that required a lot of squinting, but in retrospect were most likely time bomb-like nervous ticks.
In sashayed Saliz, a 7 year old Diva Impersonator, whatever that means.
(Are there any Pageant Girls named Sue? Or Eunice? Why is that?)
Mom Sarah was a smiley, big boned fierce thing that reminded me of Oprah before she got a full time hairdresser. She had already sent Saliz up on stage dressed as Tina Turner, so you knew she was all about the Fierce Factor. Mom was pretty level headed about the whole thing, but was determined to make her daughter a household name.
Move over, Beyonce. You just stay home and diaper that baby. Saliz can handle this.
Three days before Show Time, Mom Erika decided to take sniffly Isys to Teffany’s Dance Studio to learn a new routine. (Seriously. Doesn’t anyone use SpellCheck when they name their babies anymore?)
The whitest dance teacher I have ever seen filmed on TLC was in charge of teaching a little African American girl with a head cold how to get all Gangstah. How do you think that one turned out?
As Isys coughed and tried to work it like a G6, Mia had to practice her routine to a couple of lawn chairs full of teddy bears. Mom barked directions as Mia kept looking at the wrong bear judge. Marina was slowly unraveling, and you knew it wouldn’t be long now.
Oprah and Saliz headed to Miss Cindy’s Pageant Shop to pick up the custom made dress for the pageant. Saliz couldn’t wait to see it, and Oprah couldn’t wait to find out how much it cost. When you don’t even ask how much a fully sequined, glitterific cupcake dress will run you before it’s all cut and glued together, then…well…maybe she is really Oprah.
$1200 later they had a dress.
Open that front trailer door. Now shut it again.
Since Isys couldn’t drive due to being heavily medicated, Mom brought her to get her nails did. I think she also hid her glasses so Isys couldn’t see the drills and buffers and tools of the trade. She still felt the pain, and did manage to find the TLC camera long enough to give the saddest Please Save Me face I’ve seen yet. And she coughed some more.
Pageant Day arrived and everyone pulled up to curb with a storage unit’s worth of oversized tupperware and garment bags.
Isys was tired. And sick. And clearly sick of it.
Mia had one loose hair curl that was dangling, and Marina’s shell cracked a little more until the girl doing hair and make-up sprayed Aqua-Net in her face to shut her up.
Saliz channeled her Inner Beyonce. She was all good, but Oprah was nervous.
When Miss Mia hit the stage, she had her big blond weave, lip shine and posing hands all under control, but didn’t remember to bring a stopwatch with her and over stayed her welcome. Cut her some slack. She’s 4. She probably doesn’t even know all the numbers up to 12. Regardless, they almost had to use the hook to get her off stage.
Miss Annette had to keep thanking her until she got the hint.
Marina also didn’t have a stopwatch. Or a handbook on Good Parenting, apparently, as she completely blew a nutty over the incident.
I mean nutty. Blew. A. Nutty.
In some of the worst parenting ever seen on T&T, Marina drags Mia back to the hotel room to complete her MomSpaz, crying and rambling on and on that everyone hates Mia and they cut her down and they hate her and they cut her down and…wait for it…they hate her.
The whole thing was doubly stressful thanks to Marina’s Boris & Natasha accent. The scene played out like you were trying to tune in a Russian radio station late at night with no reception and kept getting every other word. Husband Ray tried to slap her down a little, but she wanted to go home now. Some random, nameless brothers just layed around the hotel with their Soduko books or whatever that was they were fidgeting with as Marina whined and whined.
Marina made sure to emotionally scar poor little Mia but telling her she already lose. (That’s not a typo…that’s how she talks.)
And they hate her. And Mom wants to go now.
It got to the point where Mia slipped out the door and almost made it down to the bar before one of the brothers went to get her before she got carded.
Mom is a mess. Mia is 4 and didn’t sulk as much as Mom.
They finally get her back down to the stage for Celebrity Wear, where Marina sits and complains some more that her daughter already is lose. (Again…not a typo.)
Mia did a Shirley Temple number, complete with a Britney Spears headset. She’s a cutie, and she actually sang the song. Take that, haters.
Of course, in true T&T fashion, directly after her was another Shirley Temple. But this one was the Pussycat Dolls version, as she fist pumped and chest popped her two piece outfit all over the Holiday Inn.
Don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?
Mia’s face was worth the price of admission, but I don’t think Mom was ready for that jelly as her final engine ignited. Houston, we have a problem.
Mom sulked and cried and swore and moped outside in the lobby like a spoiled brat. Total strangers wanted to slap her silly. She continued to tell her daughter that she was lose. (Again…for the third time…)
As Marina proved to every registered guest in the hotel that she had no grasp on maturity or the English language, Isys did her Jennifer Lopez imitation and Saliz ghetto blasted through some Nicki Minaj.
I’m not sure how either of those numbers fit the Old Hollywood them, but by then everyone was more concerned that Marina was going to trash the building. (…“When the last finger kiss is blown…release the nukes…”)
After 8 adult judges had time to sit around and pick apart young children in a creepy Harry Potter round table kind of way, it was crowning.
Even though Isys had no idea where she was by the end of the day, she managed to pull top honors in her age group. But that wasn’t enough for Mom Erika, as she took the opportunity to drink the same Kool-aid that Marina must have been chugging all day, and had her own meltdown.
Sore loser, much?
Erika is not taking her daughter to fake pageants anymore. Just the good ones. Not the ones where they already know who is going to win. Fixed. Blah to the blah, lady. How about you teach your kid how to have friendly competitions and lose gracefully? I’m thinking that there might be a few more disappointments ahead in life.
Hopefully without her glasses on, Isys didn’t have to witness the second MomSpaz of the day.
Mia ends up winning $500, but it’s too little too late as Mom announces that Miss Annette has ruined everything. Her life. Everything.
If you hurry, you can catch a ride on Erika’s Sore Loser Bus before it leaves the parking lot and you two can go to IHOP or something.
When Saliz first pulls out for a higher prize, Oprah goes total banana boat with her girlfriends, in true Oprah style. (“YOU get a crown! And YOU get a crown! And YOU…”) But it’s short lived, as Saliz doesn’t get the money.
Saliz had a really sad Whitney Houston face at the end, and that made me sad.
But Ray looking for a box big enough to ship his wife back to Russia in made me smile again.
She’s a loon.
And a lose.
