little miss sunshine

i went to see little miss sunshine last night, and it reminded me of a story i would like to share. it's not actually my story, but i'm going to tell it anyway. i believe that this person is actually known as urine girl on cicada's blog, so i'll just stick with that.

urine girl has had a variety of interesting and almost always less-desirable jobs in her life. i could, if i wanted to, devote an entire series of blogs about all of her past forms of employ. but i'm only going to talk about her stint as a temporary "talent associate" working for star search.

for this job she got to wear a headset. she was in charge of guiding the contestants to where they needed to go. she said that never before had she been exposed to such an underground beauty pageant culture. little girls were running around with sequin-encrusted crushed velvet leotards while their mothers chased them with rouge and lipstick in clouds of powder. this is what urine girl described, anyway.

headsets can sometimes give a level of prestige that normally wouldn't be had, and because of this, urine girl became somewhat of an inside source. at least that's what the contestants and their mothers seemed to think. they began to ask questions like, "what exactly are the judges looking for?" urine girl, entirely disinterested, shrugged and mumbled, "i don't know," and probably would have added, "who cares," if she hadn't caught herself.

but then, she began to realize the potential power she wielded. the next contestant that asked her what the judges were looking for got a knowing look from urine girl. "well," she began, looking around to make sure no one else was listening, "i know that one of the judges really likes 'the rose' by bette midler."

minutes later, urine girl heard a shakey, unpracticed attempt at "the rose" coming from the neighboring room. she then felt a twinge of guilt. but i'm sure it didn't last too long.