Norm 

My tuxedo shone like the glory of angels. I surveyed the sea of penguins around me and breathed a sigh of relief that I was the only one who picked white. My main objective of the evening was to stand out. Although there were eleven other contestants in the male mock- beauty-pageant, my real competition was Norm.

We have all met Norm that pesky little character that defines what is funny, what is smart, what is decent. We are all well informed about what Norm thinks because the majority of society thinks the same way he does. Norm decides one day that he likes Maroon 5. The next day, every radio station is playing “Harder To Breathe” or one of their other “hits.”

I began to recognize Norm’s influence toward the end of my sophomore year. I became aware of how much control Norm actually had over the world. I saw that it was Norm that caused me to worry so much about wearing the right clothes, having the right friends, and saying the right things. I was fed up with Norm, and I was not going to sit by and do nothing.

So there I stood wearing a luminous, white tux in the backstage of the Provo High School auditorium. On the other side of the cheap black curtains sat a good portion of the student body. They came to witness the annual Mr. Provo High Pageant in which I was now competing.

The Mr. Provo High Pageant is a mock beauty pageant. The main difference between this pageant and other pageants is that instead of plastic-looking blondes with overbearing mothers, the contestants of Mr. Provo High are scraggly-looking senior boys with overbearing egos. Each senior boy who wishes to compete must be nominated by a club. The nominee, in turn, represents that club in the pageant. As president of the Dating Club, I had nominated myself. I tried to play up my self-nomination by saying I was noble not to take the nomination from another club and have some poor other guy not get the chance to compete. I’m an idiot, I know.

When I saw the Mr. Provo High Pageant for the first time – about a year before I entered high school – I thought it was hilarious. All the aspects of a standard beauty pageant were there – swimsuit, talent, eveningwear, and interview. The premise alone – making fun of Miss America – had been funny enough for me that year. Then, in my junior year, I noticed Norm.

Norm, I found out, had been in control of the Mr. Provo High Pageant all along. Norm decided what the contestants would do for their talent, what they would wear for their swimwear, and what they would say in their interview. Norm made sure that those who did not comply with his standards would not go far.

Year after year the contestants recycled the same ideas. Norm liked scuba gear for the swimsuit competition. Norm liked “being raised by wolves” in the interview portion. In my junior year, Norm was outraged when Joe Campbell wore a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, and a Speedo for the swimsuit competition. Norm made sure that from then on any contestant who wore a Speedo in the swimsuit competition would be disqualified and fined by a member of the administration.

I was nevertheless surprised to see that I was the only one to have defied Norm in the current eveningwear competition. I figured that at least one other contestant would have been wise to Norm. Of the twelve contestants, ten of them were wearing black tuxedos. I was, of course, wearing white, and Jared Daniels had decided to wear medieval knight’s armor. Now don’t be fooled. Don’t think for a second that Jared’s choice of eveningwear defied Norm. Norm is a clever devil. He knows that none of us wants to be plain or ordinary. He knows that defying the standards he sets up could be considered fun and adventurous. So Norm created “false Norm breaking.” He creates a seemingly adventurous standard and makes it ordinary. Those who are not in tune with Norm’s tactics are duped. The medieval armor idea had been original in the early days of Mr. PHS, but Norm stole it and exploited it over the years. By the time Jared came along, it was old news. The white tuxedo, on the other hand, was new and original. It was outside of Norm’s realm, but still classy. Nobody had worn one in all the years I attended Mr. PHS, unlike the armor.

Rick Robinson, our annoying MC for the evening, was calling the contestants out one by one. A girl in an evening gown would escort the contestant onstage while Rick read a brief biography the contestant had submitted beforehand. Rick had been MC year after year for as long as anyone could remember. No one really knew who he was or why he was MC. I think he was the manager of some local dance company, but I was never sure. As far as I could see, his only real qualification for being MC was that he tried to act like he were a combination of Will Smith and Dave Chappelle. Only Mrs. Anderson, the drama teacher, thought that Rick did a good job, and since she was in charge of the program, Rick had an annual gig.

“Greg MacDonald,” Rick said. Becky Peters, wearing a plain, green dress she usually wore to choir performances, escorted Greg onto the stage. “Gregory Steven MacDonald was born to Zeus and Apolonike several thousand years ago…” his biography began. I yawned and tried to figure out how to make Jenna Turner my escort – having maintained a crush on her since 7th grade. I weakly smiled at Jenna and tried to catch her gaze, as though she would be immediately drawn to me.

“Cam Williams,” said Rick. I walked toward the stage and Carrie Martin stepped forward. I shot Jenna a pleading look, but she was busy fawning over Russell Wilson’s boutonnière. Carrie and I walked onstage. I put on my “sexy face” and walked confidently around the stage, periodically stopping to pose for the ladies. Rick read my bio. “Cam was not raised by a family of wolves and has never had anything to do with anyone remotely famous. After watching this pageant, he will resume his vapid lifestyle by watching reruns of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and eating Little Debbie snack foods – which will no doubt cost him thousands of dollars in angioplasties.” The audience thundered with applause. Carrie and I walked back offstage and Rick called for Jared Daniels. “He was born at an early age…” Rick read from Jared’s bio. I rolled my eyes and prepared for the interview portion of the evening.

We were to stay in our eveningwear and Rick would call us back out. He would ask us one question, we would reply with a humorous answer, Rick would laugh, the audience would laugh, and we would go back off stage.

“Dennis Trimble,” Rick called out the first contestant. Dennis walked out without an escort this time. He was very short and very skinny and he hadn’t done anything funny all night. “So Dennis, I have a question for you,” Rick said, “If you could have any animal in the world as a pet, which animal would you choose and why?” Dennis hesitated.

Come on, I thought, this is like the easiest question in the world. Just say something weird like an elephant with a shark duct-taped to its back.

“Umm… I guess I’d like… a giraffe… because… they’re quiet,” Dennis said.

“A giraffe. Well that’s superfly, my man. You know, I love giraffes…” Rick went off on a tangent trying to cover up for the boring answer as Dennis left the stage.

A few more contestants took their turns in the hot seat with Rick. I came up with stunning answers for each of their questions in my mind. This is going to be a piece of cake. After Patrick Tracy replied that if he were to create a new color in a box of Crayolas, he would name it “Morning Marigold,” Rick called my name.

I strode onto the stage in a confidant strut. Once again I gave my “sexy look” to the audience. I pouted and raised one eyebrow for effect. The crowd applauded generously. “Hey Rick, how you doin’?” I asked.

“Not bad, not bad,” said Rick. “Now, you know why I’ve brought you here tonight.”

“I do?” I looked blankly at the crowd. They laughed.

“I have a question for you.”

“Lay it on me.” I ran a hand through my shaggy hair to portray a sense of casual confidence. My tux seemed to illuminate my achievements in the pageant so far. I could handle anything Rick threw my way.

“If you could have one wish for the world, what would it be?”

Oh no, I thought. They gave me a question with an implied answer. Anyone who had ever seen any beauty pageant anywhere knew what I was supposed to say – world peace.

Norm had not only made sure that beautiful airheads used it as a serious answer in serious beauty pageants, but he had also made sure it was the funny answer for mock beauty pageants, thanks to Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality. The answer was so obvious that people in the crowd were shouting it as I stammered, “Uh… uh…” trying to think of a more creative response. The stage lights suddenly seemed ten times brighter. I had to lick my teeth a few times to keep my lips from sticking to them. “Um… um…”

Rick looked at me with angry expectance. His eyes seemed to be saying, Look dude, it’s not that hard. WORLD PEACE. Just say it, and we’ll all clap.

“Um… I would… uh…” Seconds became eternities as people in the crowd continued to shout ‘world peace.’ I couldn’t say it though. I would not give in. My mind ached as I tried to think of a funnier response. My thought process wasn’t working. I could not think.

Why are the lights so bright? Why did I enter this stupid pageant?! What is the effing answer?!!

Suddenly, amidst the cries of “world peace” I heard a faint yell from a boy in the crowd, “Girls!” he shouted.

Girls… girls… The stupidest part of my brain awoke. Girls… love… dating... Dating Club! I’m representing the Dating Club!

“Well Rick,” I proceeded dangerously forth, “I would wish… that everyone could have… a nice date.” I realized before I finished how horribly stupid that sounded. I smiled awkwardly and tried to avoid eye contact with Rick, who was speechless. Someone in the crowd clapped, probably my brother, and the others soon joined in with polite applause.

Rick regained his composure. “Well, we have a little Casanova on our hands tonight, folks. He’d like everyone to find love. Now that’s the best…” I didn’t listen to the rest of what Rick had to say to cover up my abysmal performance. I had been able to think of “Testosterone Teal” for Patrick Tracy’s crayon question. When Rick asked Jess Smith, “If you had one million dollars, what would you buy?” I quickly thought of “a hot air balloon and Salma Hayek’s hand in marriage,” but I couldn’t think of one single answer for what I would wish for the world. As I walked up to the other contestants I could only imagine what they were thinking of me. Some didn’t look at me, but others smiled. I looked at my friend Ty, who had answered his question about the ideal woman with a respectable pun concerning Tyra Banks.

“I think I blew it,” I said.

“You should have said world peace.”

“I KNOW! It just seemed too obvious.”

“It’s what the people wanted.”

The hard thing was that I knew he was right. The people didn’t really care about originality. They had come to be entertained, and my pathetic, ambiguous nod to the dating club had definitely not entertained.

I thought of a few more answers I could have said. One answer involved whales, and I thought it was funny, but I knew the crowd wouldn’t have understood it. No answer seemed to be as good as “world peace.” I had failed. Norm had proved me wrong.

Rick finished with the last contestant and called for a ten-minute intermission while the judges deliberated. I looked at the program to see who the judges were – Miss Spanish Fork, Miss UVSC, and Kassi Andersen, a Provo High graduate who had gone on to cross-country athletic fame. Oh crap, beauty queens. I was pretty sure they would have liked me to say “world peace.” I hoped my legendary mock-Riverdance in the talent competition would make up for my embarrassing interview answer.

After the intermission, all the contestants lined up on stage to receive their awards. The whole experience is now and was then nothing but a blur of bright lights and gift baskets. I was named “Mr. Smooth” because of my “overall sexiness,” as someone put it later in the school newspaper. Rick crowned Jared Daniels as Mr. PHS 2003. Norm and I had battled, and he came away the victor. Perhaps if I had been able to think of a substitute for “World Peace” I could have defeated Norm, but that was not to be. Norm is popular for a reason, I realized. The people wanted world peace, and I should have given them world peace. I cheated them because of my pride and my hatred of Norm. I still avoid Norm, like an awkward acquaintance, but I pay him deference from time to time. Norm is not original, Norm is not cutting-edge, but Norm is dependable, and for that I give him credit.