There’s nothing that Ali loves more than Princesses and Princess dresses. I spend approximately 28% of my week helping her dress and re-dress her little plastic princesses, 
trying my best to avoid the task of putting their microscopic shoes that refuse to stay on their nearly-microscopic feet.
(I try to convince Ali that Princesses are like normal girls and don’t like to wear shoes when they’re at home.)
(This works about 60% of the time.)
Anyway, due to her love of all things Princess, anytime a pageant is coming on and I realize it, I will let her watch part of it, most ideally the evening gown competition.
Last night was Miss USA competition, and I happened to find out it was on right before the evening gown competition began.
“Ali!! The States Princesses are on TV!!!”
She was thrilled. She came running in and immediately started assigning titles. “That one is Belle, because she’s wearing yellow. And there’s Cinderella!! She’s wearing Blue. And oh – that girl has a tored up dress. She’s Cinderella after the mean sisters tore up her dress.”
I couldn’t disagree with her – any evening gown that shows your belly button and your overly-prominent-ribcage should most definitely be classified as “Tored Up”.
After the Evening gown competition, they took way too long going through this whole set of ridiculously-risque photos of all the girls in fishnets and lingerie lounging on beds, at which point I attempted to cover Ali and Chris’ (who had joined us by now) eyes. Chris cooperated. Ali, notsomuch.
(I’m sorry – but there’s just something a little over-the-top-Donald-Trump-Skanky about the Miss USA pageant ever since he bought it.)
Finally they finished the SuperSkeevySlideshow that had nothing to do with a “scholarship competition”, and set up for the interviews.
Chris told Ali, “They’re about to ask the girls their school questions! They will be hard questions that they’ll have to answer!”
First girl comes up… “We hear that you have a great Grilled Cheese recipe. What goes on your grilled cheese?”
WHAT?!?
“Well, I start with frozen Texas Toast, then add cheese, then bake it!”
WHAT?!?!?
Next girl comes up.
“You’re so tall! How tall are you??”
“I’m great, thank you!”
Wow.
Sorry, Ali, your school questions will ALWAYS be harder than theirs.
After they got through the five finalists with these questions, we realized that those weren’t the “real” questions – they must have been more like the “warm-up” questions.
They then had marginally tougher ones from the questionably-qualified judges, including ice skater Johnny Weir(d), Paula Deen, and of course, Donald Trump’s most recent wife.
In fact, the fifty-second Mrs. Trump’s question was about those horrific pictures from earlier in the competition: “The Miss USA pageant has gotten a lot of flak about the raciness of those lingerie photos. How do they make YOU feel?”
The contestant’s answer?
“Oh, I LOVE Them. I think that they are just great and really personify Miss USA. I find them to be VERY classy.”
If she thought that was classy, she might make a GREAT Mrs. Trump Number Fifty-Three. Because The Donald thought they rocked.
Despite talk of Grilled Cheeses and Lingerie, Ali enjoyed the Princesses and couldn’t wait to see which one got the crown. As always in these types of ironic events, the only one who tripped in the evening gown competition did indeed win the crown.
Chris asked Ali if she was going to win the crown one day. I couldn’t have been more pleased with her answer…
“I already have a crown!”
Yes you do, dear, yes you do.
I did not see this and am glad, but I cannot believe the things they have on there now. And the questions? I am glad Ali knows she is already a princess.
I am in loe with your blog. I just found you, not sure how…oh,yes…through onlyyu.
This is tremendous writing. lots of words but never boring.
Thank you for all the time and effort.
I've got to think about what I want to do…I can't figure out the way to control my time spent commenting and commenting back. Any ideas on that?
Thank you.
I didn't see the Miss USA pageant, but it sounds like I didn't miss much!
Those questions are ridiculous!
I bet it won't be too long before there's a story in the news about the newly crowned Miss USA's scandalous past…that seems to be a requirement these day!
The last time I saw one of those pageants, I was a young teen and my dad was making jokes about how "talented" the contestants were. Yeah, I really don't see the point in watching it now that Trump has gotten his hands on it.
And I know for a fact that whoever designed those little bitty rubbery shoes does not have any children. For a short time before we "lost" all of Sissy's doll shoes, I considered starting a mailing campaign to send them all back to the designer- one shoe at a time. Do you think opening an envelope and having a tiny rubber shoe fall out would get the point across?
Wow, I am glad we don't have TV anymore. I used to love watching the Miss USA pagents when I was little, but they never had lingerie photo shoots either. :P
Ali is certainly the queen as far as Ethan is concerned!
Hmmm…so Paula Deen and ice skaters? That's what's going on in the world for the girls to answer? Recipe questions should have been the real questions.
All of our itty-bitty princess shoes mysteriously disappeared shortly after little sister began moving. Come to think of it, all the choking-hazard toys in the house just disappeared one day. Hmm.
I'm not sorry to have missed the pageant, but I am very happy to know about the grilled cheese Q&A. I'm bringing that up next time someone tries to make a cogent argument about "scholarship competitions."
Stop dissing the grilled cheese people! A proper grilled cheese can affect world peace in ways nothing else can!!
We played princess today and I have a very interesting story. I think I'll go post about it.
Just curious – is Belle an amputee? Most of our princesses have at sometime been bald and one of our Princes is missing an arm. Thanks for making me laugh – glad your princess has better taste in evening gowns than the state princesses :-)
My first thought was to say that one day Ali could be a states princess! Then I decided that the skank factor by that point will be off the hook, so it's best not to encourage that sort of goal.
I think pageants are kind of creepy myself, especially the ones with babies and young kids. I can see why they'd be fun to watch and even to be in but I can't seem to get over my discomfort in order to actually enjoy them myself.
Granted the Miss USA girl are usually prettier, the Miss America pageant is far classier.
So glad Ali knows she IS a princess and is not setting her sights so low as that kind of pageant.
Heather – Belle is not an amputee, but Cinderella has been beheaded and fixed again. She'll always have a crack in her neck as a memory of that event…
Oh this is beyond precious! I was just like Ali :) The little girl I nannied for a few years ago had princesses just like hers. I HATED putting their shoes on and I think I tried the same reasoning with her and achieved approximately the same results. I couldn’t believe that they didn’t end up in the vacuum cleaner!