The Miss America Pageant was last weekend (a week ago).
I didn’t even know that the pageant was scheduled. Didn’t it used to be in September?
Anywho, the winner was Miss Virginia. Can I hear a shoutout for my home state?
For those of you keeping count, that makes this the third winner from Virginia in the pageant’s history.
[Yes Texas and Mississippi, I hear you down there strutting and preening over your dozens of pageant winners. Shut it. Most states don't start training 'em up at birth.]
What’s much more important is the fact that Virginia is the home state of eight, count ‘em 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8, EIGHT U.S. presidents.* Now that’s something to be proud of.
[* For those of you who don't have that information readily available in your brain cells: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, and Woodrow Wilson.]
Anyway, getting back to the pageant, I’m sure this will just stun you, but I didn’t watch it. I don’t watch reality TV or any live programming at all, but surely I wanted to watch 50+ women wearing tranny makeup jiggle across the stage?
Um, hell to the N-O.
I used to watch the pageant religiously, but now avoid it if at all possible. And I really don’t want my girls to watch it until they’re old enough to understand that the show is a bad influence on impressionable young female minds.
I can hear you saying, “But Jen, the show is a scholarship contest and those women are out there doing good things for the less fortunate.”
And I say to you, trust me, the show makes young impressionable girls feel bad about themselves.
Want to know how I know?
I can distinctly remember watching the pageant one year when I was about 14 or 15. During the swimsuit competition, each contestant’s vital stats were flashed on the TV screen, including weight. Even though I weighed only 107 or thereabouts, I distinctly remember seeing those numbers and worrying that I weighed more than a couple of those malnourished females.
So yeah, bad influence.
But, here’s the thing, I have to be careful about what I say about pageants, otherwise someone who has known me for a real long time could call me out as a hypocrite.
Mmm hmmm, that’s right people, I have a pageant in my past. My very distant past.
Now, my original plan when I first started writing this post a week ago was that I was going to dig out some old photos, scan them, and then write a lengthy post about it. Only, I have since achieved none of these things, due mostly to the fact that I’ve spent an incredible amount of time stockpiling food and supplies for our Long-Ass Winter and then shoveling snow, to be followed by resting up from my exertions, only to have to repeat the entire process over and over again, as it almost never stops snowing here in Virginia. It’s possible that it might be weeks or months before I can stop inventorying toilet paper and wondering if I have enough to get through the next nor’easter.
I am going to tell you that I was never Miss Roanoke or Miss Virginia, that the pageant that I was in was much lower down the totem pole. I will also state quite clearly for the record that there was no swimsuit contest. But I did wear tranny makeup, so there’s that.
On the off chance that I 1) dig up the old photos and 2) actually scan them, would any of you be interested in me humiliating myself in such a manner?


