mid-morning time waster



last night, after we had finished priming the baseboards and were in the midst of watching a close red sox/tigers scrum, cade impulsively grabbed the comcast remote and muttered “don’t judge me”* as he turned the channel to the miss teen usa pageant on nbc.

i’d love to tell you that i cursed my future housemate and immediately turned the channel back to the ballgame, but i must admit i found the pageant highly entertaining. after a half hour of, um, poking fun at the physical limitations of the girls on the stage, laughing at their barely concealed attempts to flaunt their nascent sex appeal and ridiculing at their ambiguous responses to rather unremarkable queries, i asked cade how the pageant folk come up with the questions. in my mind’s eye i could envision the pageant coordinators writing the questions as they sipped amaretto sours and watched the second season of will and grace on dvd. cade suggested that the questions were created in an altogether sober environment, but still i had to wonder what kind of questions my friends could come up with if we had just the tiniest bit to drink and were not concerned with matters of propriety.

so there’s the catch. if you were sitting with me in some velvet covered lounge, sharing some drinks and enduring the androgynous, coldplay inspired music that was being piped over the pa, what questions could we come up with for miss teen usa? here’s my first batch.

1. now that you've excelled in the electric swimsuit competition and stunned us with that evening gown that accentuates your legs how would you answer accusations that the miss teen usa pageant objectifies young women?

2. do you consider the french government's ban on hijabs in state schools to be an offense to muslim civil rights or simply an attempt to impart a little fashion sense to their islamic citizens?

3. if you had to choose between a marine who looked absolutely gorgeous in his uniform but was a little light in the intellect and an air force lieutenant who looked atrocious in baby blue but had a bright future ahead of him in engineering who would you do?

4. if your parents bought you the hot pink lamborghini you've always dreamed about would you be willing to exchange the car for middle east peace?

Help me out here…what questions would you like to ask the ambitious contestants of miss teen usa?


* which, in my experience, is a phrase that serves as either a precursor to a particularly stupid action or a desperate attempt to justify some past sin.