If she had asked me to jump off a bridge … I probably would have done that too …

I had a friend my Senior year in High School. I am unsure exactly when she moved from New York to Utah, so she might have been my friend my Junior year also.

She was beautiful, vivacious, full of life, mischievous and loved every minute of life. We got along rather swimmingly – which is saying quite a lot for me. Having many, many acquaintances I was gifted with being the Studentbody Vice President AND before you think that I was actually COOL or something … I was also the Yearbook Editor – thus the nerdy part to balance everything into perfect equilibrium.

As I said – acquaintances, but not many close friends. This was entirely my fault – I am rather shy – which, when you have been goaded into running for a Studentbody office, then winning said office and don’t dare make eye contact with people in the halls or go to the cafeteria for lunch (because, you know, there were PEOPLE there …) most everyone decides that you are a stuck-up bitch and stays away.

I was rather OK with that … it worked for me. I was left alone. Except for my friend. She was the EXACT opposite of me – adventurous, fun, talked to everyone – not a shy bone in her body and always, always had a huge smile on her face. She was the Yin to my Yang as far as friendships go and would talk me into doing things that I generally, if left to my own devices would never done. I’m not talking about robbing the local 7-11 or anything – just stuff that I normally don’t do – like stuff where other people are involved …

One day she came to me with a plan. There was a contest, she said. It looked fun, she said. I assume the rest of our conversation went about something like this:

Lori: “Oh! No, no, no, NO, Never!”

Kim: “Why? Come on, there is no one there from Logan – it’s our sworn DUTY to represent the city in which we live in. Anyway – it will be fun!”

Lori: “Have you ever thought that there was maybe, just maybe a GOOD REASON no one from Logan is ‘representing our fine city’? It is a (OK, I am ashamed to admit it – I did use this term, like ALL of the time referring to people who lived in our county but not in the city limits – a HUGE distinction in my mind) ‘Goat Ropers’ event and … just … no.”

Kim: “You are awful! It is NOT just for the county kids – come oooon! I promise, we will have fun! Anyway, I want to do it, but I don’t want to go alone …”

Lori: “Can I make fun of everyone there?”

Kim: “Of course.”

Lori: “And no one gets hurt?”

Kim: “No one gets hurt. Just a fun time all round!”

Lori: “I’m gonna regret this, aren’t I?”

Kim: “WHY would you say that? Good times, good food, good making fun of others – what is not to like?”

Lori: “OK” *sigh* And my FAMOUS LAST WORDS

I did not want to have anything to do with this event. I have SERIOUS ISSUES on anything that even smells of what this event smelled of, but she wanted to do it and she could talk me into ANYTHING.

I made fun of EVERYTHING. And I mean everything. I remember that during a one-on-one interview they asked me why I was there? I was a little freaked, like someone had told the adults about my making fun of absolutely everything. So I answered: “Um, for the food?” and got the laugh that I expected. It sounded way better than my friend had twisted my arm and I was sorely regretting it.

Well the evening comes and there we all are. Standing around in a huge auditorium. My eyes were sore from rolling and rolling them. Everyone there seemed so … dumb! They had no interests that I was even remotely interested in. I would have loved a good conversation about my Physics class, or where I was heading to college – but they wanted to talk about hair, and makeup and Kim had to physically stop me multiple times from attempting to make the gesture of sticking my finger down my throat. Yeah … good times.

Standing there under the hot lights … I remember thinking only ONE THING:

How much longer it was going to last?

Thirty minutes …

Twenty minutes …

As I was looking at my watch trying to figure out if I had made it to 10 minutes the person on my right nudged me and said “They called your name … go!”

Lori: “WHAT!!!”

Unknown County Girl: “THEY JUST CALLED YOUR NAME – go up there!”

Lori: “I will KILL her …”

And so I did what, in my wildest imaginations had not even ONCE thought could happen. I plastered a very fake smile on my face, stepped up to the MC who put a crown on my head and handed me a bouquet of flowers. And then there was the ‘walk’ and in my mind each step resounded with the mantra “I’m going to KILL her” over and over again.

ESPECIALLY when, during that ‘walk’ I turned around to go back and saw her up there standing in the stands LAUGHING HER FREAKING HEAD OFF.

UGGG – I am so ashamed.


My parents recently sent me a bunch of stuff when they were cleaning out their closet and I was yet again reminded of my humiliation, but not so much – since this was the program to the LAST THING I EVER HAD TO DO AS A ‘DAIRY PRINCESS’ ahhgh – just the words ‘Dairy Princess’ makes me want to gag:



Yeah – I could have just DIED. After, behind the scenes, a bunch of county girls found it odd when a girl in a Green dress wearing a crown LEAPT and attacked the girl she had been hanging around for the past two days. I know it is a bad word, but, really … there is no other word that works here: Bitch Slapping commenced until she was laughing so hysterically and I was still yelling at her – actually swatting her with my bouquet of flowers that everyone sort of backed off and gave us space ….

I would go into the year of endless school visits, rodeos (kill me now), parades but I won’t.

It ended and there was one fun part. The ‘Queen’ was seriously a bitch that was a very, very strange person and we decided that after she pulled off her fake eyelashes, her fake fingernails, and the rest of the weird accoutrements that she was wearing … that underneath it all … she was from another planet. The other two ‘attendants’ were a blast – the one named Lisa had an identical twin sister Liz who also participated in this little ‘contest’.

Seriously – how does one win and not the other? They were inseparable and all three of us became good friends … County Girls be damned …



I am sure there is a moral to this story somewhere …





… hell if I know what it is though ….