FICTION

THE BEAUTY PAGEANT

Anonymous

It all started because of what some people would call a big mouth. I was a young newspaper reporter and was covering the city beauty pag- eant for my newspaper. My seat happened to be reserved next to my newspaper's biggest rival and, to my dismay, their reporter covering the event happened to be its owner and one of my worst enemies. His paper and the one I worked for were the biggest two in the city and were al- ways fighting for tops in the business. I decided that there was nothing I could do about the seating arrangement and went to take my seat.

"Hello Rick," he said upon seeing that I had the seat next to him. “I see that your paper doesn't think much of the city beauty pageant."

"Hi, Dave," I replied, “and why do you think my paper would think any less of this pageant than yours?”

"Well, they seem to have sent a second rate reporter to cover it.”

With this I was furious but said nothing. As the pageant went on Dave kept making comments to me about how this girl couldn't dance, or that girl couldn't sing or she was flat chested or his daughter had a better shape, etc. About 3/4 of the way through the contest I really got fed up with all his comments and decided to shut him up once and for all. I turned to him and said, "It's a good thing you are not a judge!"

"Why?" Dave asked.

“Because, from what you have said, there wouldn't be any girls left in contention. I could probably go up there right now and win myself!"

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