BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

I don't know which makes me prouder to be an American--the Fourth of July or the Miss Texas pageant.

As a former beauty queen, I have special feelings about pageants--the good, the bad and the ugly. Sweating for sixteen hours in a unicorn costume on a hot summer day is not my idea of fun but, as my grandmother used to say, "You have to suffer to be cute."

I've seen it all--the drama, the hullabaloo, the cat fights. Three blondes tearing each other's hair out. Smeared leg make-up and razor burn. A distraught mother threatening to blow up the coliseum because her daughter didn't even get runner-up. And through it all, I am proud to say, I wore the jaw-breaking smile and big hair of the Texas beauty contestant.

Misty Dawn, who has been living in the back of the beauty shop since her mother was sentenced to Huntsville, will make her sixth attempt at the crown this year. If she doesn't win this time, I've advised her to throw in the towel and marry the first guy who asks her. She's not getting any younger (22!) and it's no telling what her mother will do if Misty's not married by the time she gets out of jail. Especially since LaVerne talked her boyfriend into paying Misty's tuition to Famous Model and Charm School.

Misty may be a loser but she's not a quitter. Some girls flip out from the pageant scene. Like cute little Jessica Punkett. She stole some depilatory cream from the supermarket and then, during the Miss Axel pageant, Jessica hid another contestant's accordion. One thing led to another and in March Jessica was sent to reform school.

I'd like to see Stormy or Destinee win the Texas title. What mother doesn't dream of seeing her daughters crowned? But we can't even afford to get the house sprayed for fleas, much less pay for all the manpower to whip them into pageant material. They'll just have to stay in their natural state, like big dirty rocks with diamonds inside.

A lot of girls get way too wrapped up in beauty pageants anyway. My sister Kathy to this day has not recovered from having to relinquish the Miss Goat Head crown. She was a shoo in, with her crinkley perm and three inch nails. I remember her coronation like it was yesterday--the pride our family felt when she skated down the sidewalk on free skates from Leon's Roller Rink.

Then tragedy struck. My sister was filling in for Daddy at the Lion's Club booth during the rodeo. Cowboys and farmers were practically mobbing the food stand, hoping to steal a kiss from the cutest girl in Cobb County. She must have been distracted by all the attention. Suddenly with a screeching sound that brought the whole rodeo to a standstill, her hair got tangled in the cotton candy machine. She was asked to abdicate when judges determined she could no longer fulfill her official duties as Miss Goat Head.

Let us hope the days of such cruel injustice are behind us now and that the new Miss Texas will be loved as much for what's inside her head as what's on top of it.