Oriflamme

Oriflamme

I realize it's pronounced 'flam' and not 'flame,' but nevertheless, I feel like the definition should include a drag queen somehow. Or that I should at least be writing about a drag queen. 

I was gonna be a drag queen once - I spent hundreds of dollars on a new dress and a fitted wig and spent an entire afternoon at the Susan Posnick counter getting the perfect look. I was very excited because I was going to sing the National Anthem at the neighborhood t-ball game that evening. Well! I got to the park, bags in tow, and found that the community building was locked for remodeling!!

"What?" quoth I. "Where am I to change?"

Cripes. The only thing they had were port-a-potties!! Seriously - I'm changing out of my shorts into, oh here, I found a picture of it, and a wig and applying make-up in a port-a-potty?? Really?? Those things are freaking HOT!! I looked like I was crying eyeliner before I hardy even got it on!

Some wiseacre walked by and shouted, "Hey, if the Biffy's a-rockin', don't come a-knockin'!"

"Hey there, Mr Wisenheimer, instead of being a smart guy, you could come in and help!" 

And I'll be gull darned if he didn't!! Nice guy, too. But do you know how hard it is to move around trying to fit into a gown with two people in a port-a-potty? Try it sometime! Seriously, try it and get back me!

So anyway, I was able to get the dress on (barely!) and the wig and the makeup and I was just about to make my grand entrance (or perhaps in this case exit?) when I realized I had put on my stilettos without putting on my pantyhose!! Dammit!!

So I sit down, pull the shoes off, pull on the pantyhose and...

Uh, why do I suddenly feel like there are a thousand spiders crawling up and down my legs? Oh my god! Women actually wear these things? Atrocious, bad, baneful, base, beastly, calamitous, corrupt, damnable, depraved, destructive, disastrous, execrable, flagitious, foul, harmful, hateful, heinous, hideous, iniquitous, injurious, loathsome, low, maleficent, malevolent, malicious, malignant, nefarious, no good, obscene, offensive, pernicious, poison, rancorous, reprobate, repugnant, repulsive, revolting, spiteful, stinking, ugly, unpleasant, unpropitious, vicious, vile, villainous, wicked, wrathful, and just pain wrong accouterments! There was no way in hell (as it were) that I was leaving that port-a-potty with the spawn of Satan digging their odious fingernails of death into myne legs!! 

Screw it!

I ripped off the gown and the hose and the stilettos and threw back on my street clothes and left! Whoever used the potty after me got themselves some free clothes and makeup.

"Sing yer own damn National Anthem!" shouted I as I walked past all the kids lining up. Guess I told them. It wasn't until after I stopped at Target, the grocery store, and got home that I realized I had forgotten to take off the stupid wig.