Like being in a jungle of statuettes, we’re trudging our way through awards season. With the grand-daddy of them all almost upon us — OSCAR®.
Which always reminds me of when I was asked to be judge at a beauty contest by a friend of mine (who will remain nameless) — you will see why.
Beauty pageants, like awards shows, and roasts, and all those other excuses for a show are big business unto themselves.
And so when I judged this beauty pageant — which had girls from 5 to 18 in different categories — with my ‘A-list’ semi-celebrity friend — the two of us made up half the contingent of judges.
We looked at each other and decided we would do a good deed — the pretty girls would always do well in life — while the not so attractive ones would have to (like Avis) ‘try harder’…
So we agreed we would vote for the most unattractive girl in each category — which we did — while the parents behind us were egging on their daughters to ‘stand tall’, ‘smile’, ‘twirl’ — twerking hadn’t been invented yet.
Lo and behold, every one of our less than attractive girls won their category. I figure the two other judges must have split their votes (or scored lower).
We breathead a sigh of relief and looked at each and said ‘our work was done’ — we had done a good deed.
But then – the competition wasn’t over — the Emcee said it was now time to announce the big winner, the girl who had scored the most points not just in her category but of the entire group.
Uh-oh. this we hadn’t counted on.
When the score was tallied up, I have to say the most unattractive of all the girls was named the big winner. So the scoring must have been accurate.
This we hadn’t counted on and we thought it was a little much.
But the ‘no good deed goes unpunished’ reality hit us when this girls parents came over to us ecstatic at their daughter’s big win and told us they always knew how pretty she was, and this just confirms it. So now they were going to take her around the country entering her in all the beauty pageants they could find!
Ba-boom!
And now… the envelope please.