Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Pregnant beauty queens
Always an entertaining topic, that.
Growing up in a small Southern town, I thought I'd seen pretty much everything there is to see in the realm of pregnant beauty queens. First there was the prom queen candidate whose pregnancy news was leaked mere weeks before the big night, setting off a scandal that, in our town, was on par with the biggest and baddest -gates ever to come out of Washington. An emergency community meeting was held to discuss the crisis, and my friend Kim and I went because, it being my 18th birthday, this was the best we could find in the way of entertainment. And entertaining it was, as morally outraged parents fretted over what could be done about the expectant prom-queen-and-mother-to-be whose picture and title had already been printed in that year’s yearbook. Somewhere in the midst of all this hand-wringing, I piped up and said I thought we should just do away with the prom queen thing altogether, as it’s really just a stupid and meaningless popularity contest. This was met with shocked gasps from most of the room, and a look of pure respect and adoration from my father that I will never forget.
A year and a half after that scandal died down, a new one broke, this time personally involving my family. In October, my sister had been named first runner up in the town beauty pageant, losing out to a girl who was a friend of hers, who just happened to be dating one of my friends. Fast-forward to the following summer: I’m home from college, working at the local state park, and one day the news breaks that my friend has knocked up my sister’s friend. This time there was no big meeting allowing me to voice my opinion that beauty pageants are stupid and pointless popularity contests; instead, my former calculus teacher, who was head of the pageant committee, quietly stripped the other girl of her title and crown and transferred them to my sister. Everyone then tried to pretend like nothing had happened, except for me, because I thought the story was funny as hell and took every conceivable opportunity to retell it. (Really. My parents even had to warn me before I went on Millionaire not to tell the story to Regis.)
So as you can see, I thought I had some pretty good pregnant beauty queen stories. But nothing can top the story told to me this morning by my friend Lindsay, who is a freelance beauty pageant judge (no, really) in her spare time. Apparently, during the intermission of the small-town beauty pageant she was judging last night, she and her fellow judges were leaked the information that one of the contestants was seven months pregnant and had taped down her belly so the bulge wouldn’t show.
Needless to say, I told Lindsay she had to take me along to the next small-town beauty pageant she judges. Because, yes, they may be stupid and pointless popularity contests, but you just can’t beat a good pregnant-beauty-queen scandal.
Always an entertaining topic, that.
Growing up in a small Southern town, I thought I'd seen pretty much everything there is to see in the realm of pregnant beauty queens. First there was the prom queen candidate whose pregnancy news was leaked mere weeks before the big night, setting off a scandal that, in our town, was on par with the biggest and baddest -gates ever to come out of Washington. An emergency community meeting was held to discuss the crisis, and my friend Kim and I went because, it being my 18th birthday, this was the best we could find in the way of entertainment. And entertaining it was, as morally outraged parents fretted over what could be done about the expectant prom-queen-and-mother-to-be whose picture and title had already been printed in that year’s yearbook. Somewhere in the midst of all this hand-wringing, I piped up and said I thought we should just do away with the prom queen thing altogether, as it’s really just a stupid and meaningless popularity contest. This was met with shocked gasps from most of the room, and a look of pure respect and adoration from my father that I will never forget.
A year and a half after that scandal died down, a new one broke, this time personally involving my family. In October, my sister had been named first runner up in the town beauty pageant, losing out to a girl who was a friend of hers, who just happened to be dating one of my friends. Fast-forward to the following summer: I’m home from college, working at the local state park, and one day the news breaks that my friend has knocked up my sister’s friend. This time there was no big meeting allowing me to voice my opinion that beauty pageants are stupid and pointless popularity contests; instead, my former calculus teacher, who was head of the pageant committee, quietly stripped the other girl of her title and crown and transferred them to my sister. Everyone then tried to pretend like nothing had happened, except for me, because I thought the story was funny as hell and took every conceivable opportunity to retell it. (Really. My parents even had to warn me before I went on Millionaire not to tell the story to Regis.)
So as you can see, I thought I had some pretty good pregnant beauty queen stories. But nothing can top the story told to me this morning by my friend Lindsay, who is a freelance beauty pageant judge (no, really) in her spare time. Apparently, during the intermission of the small-town beauty pageant she was judging last night, she and her fellow judges were leaked the information that one of the contestants was seven months pregnant and had taped down her belly so the bulge wouldn’t show.
Needless to say, I told Lindsay she had to take me along to the next small-town beauty pageant she judges. Because, yes, they may be stupid and pointless popularity contests, but you just can’t beat a good pregnant-beauty-queen scandal.
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