A tale of to float or not to float? That is the question.
The road to the Pride parade is fraught with danger and excitement.
Finally, the grips of this endless winter have released us, and it is finally pride month. Every year I anxiously await Pride Day, just like a little kid waits for Christmas morning.
I’m reminded of several years ago when the Matrons of Mayhem prepared a float for the Pride parade. We built it on the chassis of a borrowed 1970s vintage Buick. Now since my own beloved land yacht Queertanic was also a Buick, I thought this would be fantastic. How wrong I was!
In hindsight, when considering the float car without my rose-colored glasses, the car had seen much better days. The engine ran very rough and would sometimes stall when put in gear. The owner assured us that once it got warmed up, the engine would purr like a kitten. So, armed with staple guns and gallons of hot glue, we giddily set about attaching rainbow colors and elaborate decorations to every possible surface. In all the hustle and confusion, my right breasticle accidentally got stapled to the front of the float. I broke my whole set of Lee Press-On-Nails removing it. After several hot glue burns, much running mascara, and many, many swear words, we got the float looking pretty good.
The morning of the parade, it was time to drive the float from Murray to downtown. One of my fellow Matrons, Harry-It Winston, drove the float. She started the engine and put it in gear. It promptly died. After several more failed attempts, she gunned the hell out of it and took off. I quickly jumped into Queertanic and followed behind. Off we went, slowly up the streets. It soon became apparent to me that we were in trouble. The float hit a bump, and one of the smaller decorations fell off. I honked, but Harry-It must not have heard me. So, I stopped Queertanic, wriggled out from behind the steering wheel, picked up the piece, threw it into the trunk, squeezed myself back into the car, and raced to catch up with the float. Every time the float would hit a bump, another piece of decoration would fall off. Rinse and repeat! Thank goodness Queertanic’s trunk was large enough to hold my standard pizza order of 25 pies, because by the time we reached downtown, there was the equivalent of 15 dead bodies in my trunk.
Now, keep in mind that it is rather difficult for me to get in and out of Queertanic quickly while wearing breasticles and beehive hair. I honked my horn and flashed my lights to get Harry-It’s attention, but unaware that there was a problem, she just kept going gayly forward, afraid to stop lest the engine die again. After the 10-mile journey and 23 lost decorations, we finally arrived, much worse for wear, at the parade assembly area. In all of the commotion, my left breasticle had fallen off, and my beehive wig was knocked sideways. Thank goodness we had a couple of hours before the parade began because it took us that long to reapply all the fallen decorations, not to mention get my hair back upright and reapply my mascara.
By parade time, we were able to reassemble the float, and it looked tremendous, if I do say so myself. This was going to be fantastic. Hopes welled up within my breasticles that we could possibly win the trophy for best float. Our friend David volunteered to drive the float for us, while we rode and waved to the people. I perched my ample buttockus maximus in a comfortable spot on the rear end of the float where both my hands would be free to wave to the adoring crowds. I had prepared for this by studying videotapes of the elbow, elbow wrist, wrist, wrist, touch the pearls technique that Queen Elizabeth used when waving to the crowds.
The parade officials gave us the signal to begin. The engine roared to life, the float lurched violently forward ten yards, and the engine died. I fell off the back end, landing on the street like sequin-covered roadkill. Several bystanders came to my aid and helped pick me up off the pavement, and I carefully “remounted the rear.”
This scenario repeated over and over again and again for the entire length of the parade. After I had fallen off the rear for the third time, I resigned myself that I needed to keep a death grip on an iron rod that was protruding from the chassis. I couldn’t help but sing my dirty version of the Mormon hymn.
“Hold to the rod, the iron rod;
‘Tis strong, and bright, and true.
The iron rod is the dildo of God;
‘Twill safely guide me through.”
At one point, despite holding to the dildo … er … rod, I fell off again, but my fingers were so tightly gripping the rod, they wouldn’t release. I was dragged several yards before a handsome bystander boosted me back up to my perilous perch. I have never been so glad to see a parade end in my life.
This story leaves us with several important questions:
1. Should I have left my right breasticle attached to the front of the float to act as a cow catcher like on a locomotive?
2. What kind of solvent is best to remove road tar from sequins?
3. Is it considered a grand gay social faux pas if a queen can’t keep ahold of a rear end?
4. How many times can a queen re-mount a rear before she is labeled a slut, or, worse yet, incompetent?
5. Was holding onto the iron rod good training for solo sex?
6. Does this make me a Power Bottom For Jesus?
These and other eternal questions will be answered in future chapters of The Perils of Petunia Pap Smear.
