Letters, Part 3

Today's letter comes from the Nationals Miss Teen Los Angeles Pageant. This actually came to me about a year ago. I immediately stashed it my folder for fear that my youngest daughter might see it.

Don't let your imagination get in front of you on this one. You see due to an unholy obsession with TLC's Toddlers and Tiaras, Abby has an unusual fascination with pageants and pageantry. Had she seen this letter, I never would've heard the end of it until we were actually seated in the Cecil B. De Mille Ballroom at the Holiday Inn LAX Hotel. 

Truth be told, Abby could care less about taking home a trophy or having the prettiest eyes/smile/face. Or even being named Miss Ultimate Grand Royal Supreme. 

No, my little bundle of cynicism just wants to enter a beauty pageant to make a mockery of the whole affair. With two index fingers firmly planted on cheeks, this would be a glorious day of full glitz derision. 

As you might imagine, part of me wanted to spring for the entrance fee, just so we could see Abby don a sequined Tu-tu like so many of the ones we've seen purchased with rent money or permanently deferred college tuition funds. It would have been a riot to see her purposely blotched tanning application. Or her vampire flipper. And in the talent contest, her screechy version of Katy Perry's California Girls would have brought me to tears -- tears of laughter.

The meanie in me also wanted to sit in the same room and come face-to-face with these ridiculous stage moms whose broken dreams and soaring waistlines seem to be in direct proportion to the amount of money invested in the empty vicarious thrills of junior pageantry. But better judgment -- my wife -- prevailed.

Besides I don't need phony validation from a failed beauty queen or cheap plastic trinkets from a snake oil salesman to remind me how lucky I am to come home everyday to my three "Total Packages."