A little secret . . .

That's me.

I was a debutante.

A one-armed debutante with two hands (click on the photo for a better look).

I have no idea why I was one of the young ladies actually chosen to represent the organization. My mother came home one day from one of her philanthropic meetings and handed me an application to fill out. The application asked me to list all of the charitable organizations I belonged to. The lines underneath were numbered from one to twenty. I was only 17 at the time. I hadn't lived long enough to belong to anything other than the Girl Scouts. I pondered the question for about a minute and then my imagination took over. I wondered if being a faithful Friday night viewer of the Donny and Marie show counted as a charitable act. I put down that I had been a candy striper. They didn't need to know that I had been fired from my volunteer job on the first day of training because I ate all the candy I should have been delivering to patients. I started making things up just to fill up the space. I remember getting carried away and writing about how I single-handedly rescued 20 pagan babies from eternal damnation when I was in 2nd grade. It must have impressed the panel. I was in.

The guy in the red sash was my escort. He was supposed to be glued to my side all night long catering to my every whim. The guy in the blue sash was the back-up escort. He was supposed to take over if the red sash guy had to take a bathroom break or something. This was the one and only time I saw both of them all night. It's okay though because I didn't like my escort anyway.

That's my dad helping me down the stairs.

He's telling me to hurry up because he doesn't have all day. He's also telling me to quit asking him to carry me.

I've just finished making my St. James curtsey. That curtsey boot camp my mom sent me to for 6 months paid off.

I'm distracting my dad so he doesn't see the pink flowers and red walls and the orange shag carpeted stairs with stains and duct tape. He reminded me daily that it cost an arm and a leg for me to be a debutante. I should know...it was my arm.

It was a memorable night.

For the record, no pagan babies were given ridiculous names in the telling of this story.