BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

I don't know which makes me prouder to be an American--the start of high school football or the Miss America pageant.

As a former beauty queen, I have special feelings about pageants. Sweating for sixteen hours in a unicorn costume on a hot September 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 glamour, the drama, 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 auditorium when her daughter doesn't even win Miss Congeniality.

And, throughout every conceivable adversity which can befall a live telecast, I proudly wore the jaw-breaking smile and big hair of the American pageant 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 Axel crown this year. If she doesn't win this time, I'm going to advise her to throw in the towel and marry the first guy that asks her. She's not getting any younger (22!) and it's no telling what her mother will do if Misty's still not married by the time she gets out of jail. Especially after LaVerne's boyfriend fronted the money for Famous Model and Charm School.

You'd think playing the spoons would give Misty a leg up. Funny how she's been beaten by baton twirlers and ventriloquists. (Money under the table?)

Let's hope Misty finds a man who appreciates her special talent.

Misty may be a loser but she's not a quitter. Some girls flip out from the pageant scene. Like Jessica Punkett, whose mother owns Belinda's Burger Barn. You may recall when the Guardians of Decency picketed Belinda's over the picture of Jessica in a string bikini on the "buy one-get one free" banana split coupon.

That's what started Jessica's downhill slide. Before long she stole some gum at the supermarket and then, during the Miss Axel pageant, Jessica hid another contestant's accordion. One thing led to another, and in March Belinda and Roy had to pack Jessica off to reform school.

I'd like to see Stormy or Destinee win the Axel title. What mother doesn't dream of seeing her daughter crowned! But we can't even afford to get the house sprayed for fleas, much less pay somebody 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 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. Kathy was filling in for Daddy at the Lion's Club booth during the rodeo. Cowboys and farmers were 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, Kathy's 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's hope the days of such cruel injustice are behind us now and that the new Miss America will be loved as much for what's inside her head as what's on top of it.