If I was Playmate of the Month

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, where I was once a young and beautiful college co-ed, I thought to myself, "Self, when you are Playmate of the Month, you ought to put the yellow cardigan picture in the bio."

I haven't seen a Playboy magazine for what, oh, a couple of decades or more. But in that galaxy far, far away, Hef published little childhood pics of the playmate and her turn-ons and turn-offs. Does Playboy still do that?

Turns-ons were always something like, "Warm fires, furry kittens, and beaches." Oh yeah, snorting cat hair always make my britches a little moist. Pfft. What dingbats. And trust me, you don't really want to be turned on at the beach. If your britches get a little moist, sand sticks to your tender pink parts. Any frisky business after that is gonna be agony.

Back to the yellow cardigan pic. It was taken in 4th grade. I was a pretty cute little kid up to that point.But somewhere in the summer between my 3rd and 4th grade year, something went horribly, horribly wrong. I got a shag haircut because I was tired of pigtails and ponytails and I wanted to be a Big Girl and be stylish. Since I lived in Arkansas at the time, shag haircuts were probably five years out of date when I finally got one. And I got glasses. Again I wanted to be stylish and get little round granny specs which were groovy at the time. They didn't have those in wire rims for little kids, so here's how I looked:

Eek!!!

That, ladies and gentlemen, is some *dirty* hair. This photo must have been taken on a Friday because I got my hair washed on Saturday night whether it needed it or not. Daddy washed my hair in the kitchen sink while I laid on the kitchen counter. Momma never washed my hair because she had long fingernails and scrubbed too hard with them. Daddy was gentle as he soaped up my mop of hair with Prell shampoo and detangled it with Tame creme rinse.

This was our Saturday night ritual until I was so tall I hung off the kitchen cabinet, probably just before I went to Junior High. I know that seems a little old, but proper Southern Belles DO NOT wash their own hair. Sniff! They have someone else do it for them. I have not yet convinced my husband of this widely known fact however, and he refuses to wash my hair for me, the princess that I am.

And how about those buck teeth? I could "eat a punkin through a picket fence." I begged for braces. School pics grades 7-11 all show a mouth full of metal. I was SO proud of those braces. I got them off just in time for my senior year. Yep, that's five years if anyone was counting. I spent a lot of time in the orthodontist's chair.

Anyway, back to the cardigan photo. Although it is the most awesomely horrible photo taken of me ever, it holds a place near and dear to my heart. I want to show it to all those little girls out there who think they are ugly, who think they will never be pretty, and who think that boys will never like them. Because this is the eternal ugly ducking story. That dirty haired, bespectacled, buck-toothed little girl grew up to become this:


Woo Hoo! That, ladies and gentlemen, is some *big* hair. The lady at Glamour Shots asked me if I wanted business-like hair or Texas pageant hair. I told her I wanted the biggest hair she could make. Not just Texas hair, but tri-state hair. It took several days to chip off all the hairspray shellac.

I don't look like this now so I have no qualms about posting the photo on the Internet. My sister-in-law, whom I see every other day and twice on Sundays, studied the pic for a long while and finally asked, "Who is THAT?" Pfft.

I'll admit that most days I look closer to the yellow cardigan picture but I clean up nice when I need to.