Beech Tree News Network

If you want to discover things about your husband you never knew, put him in a dress and heels, apply makeup and add a wig, and another person will appear before you whom you never knew existed. 
    Friday night was the annual womanless beauty pageant, aka Ms. Womanless Wonder, held to benefit Project Prom.  My husband, Garey, was a contestant.  I’m not sure how he was talked into doing the pageant.  It might have been at the urging of Greg Hampton, himself a contestant in years past, who thought Garey should man (or maybe woman) up to the challenge.  However it happened, I found myself in the BCHS auditorium dressing room Friday night, applying false eye lashes to my husband’s eye lids. 
    Garey embraced his alter ego with enthusiasm, creating Mini Lou’vers, a distinguished New Orleans lady of the evening.  He put her outfit together himself, opting for a tee shirt, tied to one side,  short shorts and fish net hose instead of a dress, and finishing the ensemble with leopard print heels (thank God for Goodwill) and a leopard print bag.  He wore a black wig he took from our granddaughter’s dress-up collection.  The outfit was a stroke of genius.
    He tried everything on the Thursday night before, asking that I send our daughter, Natalie, and granddaughter, Sabria, over to Scott’s (Natalie’s fiancé) for fear that seeing her grandfather in drag would confuse his granddaughter.  Garey put on his hose and heels while I detangled the black wig and tied it back into a pony tail.  We put it all together faster than I seem to be able to get ready for work in the mornings.
    We had extra time, so I decided to work on his eyes, trying different shades of eye shadow until I found the gaudiest combination.  When it came time for eye liner, Garey had very definite ideas about the effect he wanted to create.  After I had tried and failed three times to create the “look” he was after, he took the eye liner from me and did it himself.  It was perfect!  Who knew I should have been asking his advice on eyeliner for years?
    On Friday morning, Garey got up early in order to shave his beard and put in his contacts.  The guys at work noticed the change and asked about it.  I told them he was in the womanless beauty pageant.  They asked when it was.  Garey told them it was March 32nd and the cost was five-hundred dollars per person.  After work, I tried to get him to let me put his makeup on at home, so I wouldn’t be so rushed when we got to the school.
    “No!” he said, “What if we have a wreck or get stopped by the police!”
    In the dressing room, I applied foundation to his clean-shaven face, added rouge, eyeshadow, eye liner and false eyelashes.  I couldn't get the lipstick exactly right, so Garey took it away from me and did it himself.  I struggled to get the stick-on nails to stick on, and he got a little testy with me, telling me to get a move on.  I discovered my husband isn’t as patient when he’s wearing panty hose and heels—that speaks volumes about women’s clothing.  I finished up and took my seat out front with the other significant others.
    The pageant consisted of the parade of contestants, individual style and the talent contest.  The talents were many and varied, everything from running in heels to cheer leading to blowing bubbles.  Garey brought the trombone he played in high school band (remember how I’ve told you he gets rid of nothing) and played “When the Saints Go Marching In.”  Before his performance, he explained to the audience how down in New Orleans, the burial of a loved one is always accompanied by celebration.  After he hit two sour notes at the end of the piece, the MC (Chad Flener) commented, “Now we know what happened to your loved ones.”
 Garey was the last performer, and we waited anxiously as the judges tallied their scores.  Chad introduced the judges then added, “These are the people you need to jump in the parking lot if you don’t agree with the bad decision they are about to make.”
    The judges awarded certificates for things like hottest legs, most talented, best smile and Ms. Congeniality then it was time for the final two awards: First Runner Up and Ms. Womanless Wonder.
Jason Ausbrooks took the crown and Garey was awarded First Runner Up.  I was so proud of him or her or whoever it was. 
    Backstage, there were grumblings about the contest being rigged and about the winner having facial hair, but the protestors weren’t as organized as the ones at the Trump rallies, so the crowd soon dispersed.
    On the way out, there were several comments by people who hadn’t realized that Mini Lou’vers had been none other than Garey Hughes.  I knew exactly how they felt.  The transformation had been complete.