Miss America Story.

So, I have had limited contact with Miss America contestants--to my knowledge I have only known five--but is it just me, or are they all exactly the same? Only one I have met is not totally... exemplified, shall we say, in this story.

THE STORY

So this chick I'm working with for the Tea Party movement has her eyes set on being Miss America. She's running for Miss Provo this year. Anyway, we were trying to increase membership in the Tea Party movement. And as she went through her list of friends to invite them to the movement, she just kept on this running commentary: "Oh, this guy will hate me. Oh, this person will hate me. Oh, this person will hate me..." over and over until she'd invited 200 people.

"Allie," she said, "I just made 200 people hate me!"

So I go to her Facebook page and she only has like 204 friends. Which means I have approximately 4.5x as many friends.

"Don't worry about it. I made 500 people hate me this morning," I said.

She stopped talking.

Until then I needed her email for the group. She started spelling out something, and then she was like, "! Just kidding! I can't put that one up! I don't want people to know how old I am!" And so I deleted it. She waited. "I'm only nineteen," she said. "I mean, that's really, really young."

And then she kept saying that. Different variations, over and over.

So I finally said, "No worries. I understand. I was 16 when I started here, and I just turned twenty."

She stopped talking.

:O)

Here's the thing: if you really care about not letting people know how old you are, YOU DON'T EVER BRING IT UP. When you really care about the prejudice and random crap people put you through for being young, you avoid the situation at all costs. You would NEVER ever ever put your birthyear in your email, and if you had an email like that, you would just let it die out. Never touch it again. You would not be telling your greatest secret to everyone on the street.

Oh, Miss America contestants... when will you learn?