One of my buddies is the webmaster for the Miss North Carolina website.  He called a few weeks ago to tell me he got free tickets and asked if I want to go.  My initial reaction was eff no.  My mom and sister commandeered the television on occasion growing up and forced me to watch various pageant competitions.  Other than the swimsuit competition they make me want to gouge my eyes out.  After thinking about it for a few days, I decided it might be worth attending, for the scenery if nothing else.   We assembled a crew of four doods and a wife, who lectured us about maturity as we pregamed.  She knew what we were capable of and her worst nightmare came true when we discovered they were serving liquor at the Pageant.  After tossing back several drinks we made our way down to our seats, which were close enough to call out camel toes.  There was a lot of talent in the audience, including the nice set of taters above.  God bless blackberrys.  The preshow consisted of several former Miss NCs and updates on their current whereabouts.  A Miss NC from the 60’s hobbled on stage to a round of applause and was asked what was doing these days.  Without missing a beat she replied, “I’m retired from homemaking and child raising.”  Retired from homemaking?  I didn’t know you could retire from sitting on your ass for 40 years.

The auditorium was adorned with signs of support for the various contestants.  One such sign read “Central Carolina Tire Disposal Supports Lisa.”  Shockingly, Lisa was cut in the first round.  After swimsuit, evening gown and talent rounds, the uber-hetero panel of judges narrowed the field down to five finalists.  The finals consisted of an interview session with the judges.  The first question was “What have you learned from your family?”  “To be perserverent.”  I looked at my buddy and we gave each other the “that’s not a real word” look.  He whipped out blackberry and went straight to dictionary.com to confirm our suspicions.  God bless blackberrys.  Next up was Jamee.  I couldn’t tell you what her questions were, because all I could think about was that her parents really named her Jamee with two Es.  They violated the cardinal rule of parenting:  Don’t name your daughter anything that ends in “i” or “ee.”  Doing so increases her odds of having an illy and ending up in a doublewide to greater than Zeke ripping his shirt after multiple jaeger bombs.  The eventual winner, Miss Garner, actually won the contest during the Q&A session.  She was given a total lob toss question, but she nailed it.  When asked what the most rewarding experience of the competition was, she said it was going to Duke Hospital and meeting a mother who had given birth to a baby with the disease that killed her brother.  There wasn’t a dry eye in the place and the contest was over.  Granted my eyes weren’t dry because they had just announced last call, but whatevs.