The Orlando Diaries, Day II (Monday)

1 Dec 2009 by Charlotte Mutesha, No Comments »

“Oh, my God you guys! LOOK AT THAT! Is that an orange tree? I LOVE ORANGE TREES! Go, Florida, feed the world with your oranges! Ooh, PALM TREES! Zeke, look at the trees! We’re in FLORIDA! Hey! That sign says DISNEY: 27 MILES!!!”

She gets excited.

This was at approximately 8:00 a.m. Which is early for me, even moreso when I’d been driving from midnight to 6 a.m.

And NOBODY IN THE CAR WAS AWAKE. Well, my sister, brother and I weren’t sound asleep, because it’s basically impossible to sleep in a CAR, especially while your MOTHER IS EXCLAIMING ABOUT EVERY LITTLE THING, but nobody was coherent nor responding to her.

When we could finally check in, it was like MASSIVE SUITCASE EXPLOSION all over the place. We were all hot messes from the travel, and all I could do read and read and read Freakonomics, which is so incredibly fascinating.

How I spent VERY MUCH of my downtime. Nerd.

“What is that you’ve been reading, Chichi?” my ma asked, calling me by my lifelong nickname. “Breakonomics? What’s that?”

“It’s FREAKonomics, ma, and it basically talks about the hidden side of everything,” I replied, using the subtitle to explain it as simply as possible.

“So what is it?” she pushed further.

“In a broad sense, they talk about correlation, causation, myths, the fallacies of ‘conventional wisdom,’ and they assert that it’s in human nature to respond to incentives.” I explained how Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dobner brilliantly discussed why sumo wrestlers are like schoolteachers (they both cheat on students’ test scores and in tournaments when the incentives are right). I talked about how the Ku Klux Klan are like Realtors (both groups’ powers lay in their secrecy and information hoarding).

“Also, they attribute abortion to the massive drop in crime rates in the 1990s,” I added, which is one of the more fascinating assertions in the book.

“What? Do you believe in abortion? Are you for it?”

“Yes.”

“Really, Charlotte? Murdering babies?”

Sigh. Here we go.

“Well, let me explain,” I began, knowing it was all downhill from that moment. “When Roe v. Wade was passed in the ‘70s, mothers in unwanted pregnancies could finally legally and affordably terminate them. It’s a fact that the majority of criminals come from underprivileged homes with bad backgrounds. With legalized abortion, unwanted babies weren’t born into these bad households, so when the ‘90s rolled around, the potential criminals (who would have been in their mid-to-late teens/early 20s and doing all the bad stuff) just didn’t exist….because they were never born. It had nothing to do with police initiative or gun control or federal acts, like the so-called ‘experts’ claimed. Crime was down because the pool of deviants just wasn’t substantial.”

There. Layman’s terms. Simple. Makes sense.

“Awe,” she replied, using a typical Zambian phrase. ”Sp they’re justifying abortion by saying it reduced crime? Ey, I can’t. That is SO wrong. My nephew blah blah blah, my cousin’s baby blah blah blah bad homes blah blah” and on with more fundamental babble, without even listening to my facts or points, or acknowledging the logic. Nobody’s justifying abortion, per se, but the authors are just reasoning that it was a major component in the drop in crime.

But she’s a fundie (even though I hate to say it), and logic just isn’t part of the equation most of the time when dealing with such types.

I was feeling exceptionally annoyed and was itching up a storm, so I told her I couldn’t talk to her anymore, turned around and continued with my book.

***

That evening we made the 12-minute drive from our hotel to pageant headquarters at the Hilton on the Disney Resort strip of hotels. As we pulled up to the gorgeous, expansive building, all I could think was, Gawd. That dummy Paris Hilton basically owns ALL THIS SHIT.

All the girls on the Illinois team (ages ranging from like 5 to 20, my sister being the oldest) were meeting in their prep room and practicing their respective routines- their personal introductions, and acting or dancing or cheerleading or singing and whatever. The estrogen in the room was so thick you could cut it with a nail file. PINK JACKETS EVERYWHERE!

Chloe recited her commercial and personal introduction and I was sorely impressed. “Traveling from one climate to another?” she asked, in true Covergirl fashion. “Well, dry skin is old news when you moisturize and protect with Clinique! … Best of all, it comes in travel size, so it stays with you—not in your luggage! Because you never know who’ll be sitting next to you.” *wink.*

Cute.

Other than the abortion conversation and my introduction to the sheer masses of pretty girls that had taken over the greater Orlando area, Monday was fairly mild.

With the exception of my insistence that my sister did NOT PAY TWO-HUNDRED-TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS to have her hair and makeup done by some big woman. First off, last time she did Chloe’s makeup, she smeared light pink lipstick on her face. Light pink does NOT BODE WELL with dark skin unless it’s done right (and it wasn’t in that case). And what in the world was that blonde, white woman going to do with my sister’s relaxed hair? Bitch, please.

I am a makeup maven. See? Befores and afters: