MISS UNIVERSE DRAMA, AKA STEVE HARVEY IS NO BERT PARKS!

Since I was a little girl, I’ve loved the three major beauty pageants: Miss America, Miss USA, and Miss Universe. I doubt that I’ve missed more than a handful in my lifetime. I watch for several reasons: to make fun, to laud, to cheer, to cry, and to be pissed-off. And I love it when my girl wins.

And ever since I’ve been with Mr. X, I force him to watch with me. He does it, reluctantly. He does get into it a bit, but he always points-out what a waste of time he considers it to be. Until last night.

While we are in pain over the worst snafu in pageant history, at least we saw the debacle first hand, and didn’t have to hear about it on the news. That makes it so much more interesting.

In case you don’t know of what I speak, here’s the very quick version what happened at the end of last night’s Miss Universe Pageant, followed by my experience of it:

It got down to Miss Colombia and Miss Philippines. The host, Steve Harvey, who was doing the duty for the first time, (and almost definitely his last!,) announced Colombia as the winner. She cried and celebrated for almost three minutes. It seemed like it was taking a long time for someone to congratulate her and tell her what to do, (other than the previous winner putting the crown on the announced “winner’s” head,) when finally Steve came back to the middle of the stage, and, with a stricken look on his face, declared that he had to apologize. He had pronounced the wrong girl the winner!!! OMG! That’s a first.

It was made so much more uncomfortable by the fact that Colombia did not speak much English, so she kept smiling and giggling all through his mea culpa. How horrible for all concerned. Finally, last year’s winner, (who is also from Colombia, by the way,) had to come out, put her arm around both girls, (patting her countrywoman’s back to comfort her the whole time,) and remove the crown from the wrong girl’s head to place on the other one’s! How humiliating for all concerned! I still feel bad that Philippines got deprived of her real bouquet! But that would have just been too cruel to make them exchange their flowers.

I’m sure the consolation for Miss Colombia will be that she gets famous from this horror show. Maybe even her doppelgänger, Sofia Vergara, (also from that country,) will have her appear on Modern Family as a long-lost relative. Even for a cameo. And I’m sure she’ll do the talk show circuit. (She better begin learning a bit more English pronto!  Get it?  “Pronto.”) Heck–she may even be next year’s Dancing With The Stars champion!!! (I really do think that she’ll at least be in that cast. Remember–you heard it here first!)

And, since most people don’t pay attention to Miss Universe anyway, Miss Philippines will have so much more publicity than if she had just been named the victor in the correct manner to begin with.

And Steve Harvey will have them both on his show, and make a funny story out of it, even though I’m sure he’s beyond sick about it.

And then everyone will move on to the next thing.

Except for me. I’m an Empath, and I feel awful for both girls; for Philippines to be deprived of the thrill of hearing her name called in the real way, and for Colombia for the obvious misery, of course. It’s hard for me to rise above stuff like that. I had a slightly similar horrible experience to Colombia’s when I was in the fourth grade. My teacher had us sing a song ensemble, while she came around the room and listened to us one by one, to choose a chorus. She tapped the best singers on the shoulder, and had us go to the front of the room. I was so proud when she tapped me because my father had always told me that I, like he, could not sing. At all.

tThen she had this newly-formed chorus sing for the class, and I, proud as a peacock, belted it out. She stopped us and said something was wrong. She listened to us again, and, what do you think? Of course, she said the bad one was me, and had me sit down again. I swear, I’ve never gotten over that humiliation. And that was just in front of thirty ten-year-olds! Can you imagine it in front of millions of world-wide viewers?! There are not enough “OMG”s for that!

So, last thing–here’s my experience of the Miss Universe debacle:

Halfway through the show, Mr. X took a break, so, out of boredom, I erroneously did something I never do during “live” shows, when the East Coast already has the results–I surfed the web! And, the very first thing I saw was who the winner was! I didn’t see the name, but I did see a blue dress and dark hair that was pulled back, so I knew it had to be Philippines. I hate knowing results of anything; I’m all about the journey. So, even though I had declared Columbia to be the winner from the moment I saw her, and wanted her to be, I talked myself into being happy that it would be Philippines, so that I wouldn’t be in pain at the end. So, when Steve announced it was Colombia, I was shocked! I finally told Mr. X what I thought I knew all along, and then he told me that he had seen something on the web, as well, and it was that Steve Harvey had made some major mistake on the telecast, but Mr. X didn’t know what it was. I realized right away what it had to be, so those three minutes of silence seemed like an eternity to us, cringing about what we rightly now assumed was to come. The whole thing was torturous, with us worrying for all of them.

So, there you have it. When I said to Mr. X, “Steve sure is not Bert Parks,” he practically insisted I write about it. It’s a whole miserable story, but at least Mr. X can never tell me it was a dull one!