The Pencil in the Rye

Hello? Hello? Are any of you still here? I think I may be jeopardizing my standing in the Worst Blogger Ever contest by posting, but screw it! I've missed you all terribly! Sorry for dropping off the face of the Internet the last couple of months. But I'm back (for now; let's not get too crazy with the promises), and—even more exciting—I've brought pencils with me.

But these aren't just any pencils. They are, like, the pencil equivalent of Jeff from Today's Special. Except they aren't mannequins, don't accessorize with vests and magical hats, and aren't friends with scooter-riding mice. They COME TO LIFE, is what I'm getting at.

Like this, only a pencil. And with less dancing.

[Image courtesy of Megsplace.com, which has way more info on Today's Special for those of you who are not mid-'80s Nickelodeon aficionados but would love to learn more about magical bevested mannequins. Possible disappointment alert: This mannequin does not make out with Andrew McCarthy.]

But where was I? Oh yeah, pencils. Our first inanimate objects were brought to life not by a magical newsboy cap, but by guest author Sarah.

Sarah says: In my school district, they gave you your permanent record when you finished high school, and my old writing competency tests were in there. I wrote this one when I was 8, in 1986.

The Pencil Story

Once there was a pencil who lived in a box. "I would die to get out of this box!" he said. He hated the box and all the other pencils too.

One day a kid with messy hair and grubby fingers picked him up. The boy took him to school. In his desk was a little red pencil "hi" she said. She looked just like him only red!

They had lots of fun together then the weekend came, they decided to run away. The red pencil said "Am I glad to get out of that dump." They went and moved under a low shelf. That was the greatest. They said "let's stick together forever"

Sarah says: I was given the minimum passing score for this story, which is totally unfair because once you look past the bad punctuation, it's basically the Catcher in the Rye of 120-word test essays—except for the uplifting ending where the pencils quit their jobs and live off the grid. Of course, this story does raise some disturbing questions (that no one ever asked because there were no mental health workers in my school. Plus, if you were quiet and did your work, no one ever wondered why your essay was not only written from the viewpoint of an opposite-sex protagonist, but also replete with phallic imagery...). But maybe it doesn't mean anything. Maybe a pencil is just a pencil, and I didn't hate everyone in my class...

Sada says: It's okay, Sarah. I'm glad you got out of that dump. I hope you've moved on to a "low shelf" of your own. I hear that's the greatest.

But don't think you're alone in channeling your preadolescent anxiety through phallic imagery. Part of the reason it took so long to post this (a small part, to be fair, but a part nonetheless) is that after reading Sarah's story, I had the craziest pencils-coming-to-life deja vu and was 99.9% sure that my sister, Genie, had written about the same thing. And? I was right.

Unfortunately, it took me three months to find it.

Pencil Tales offers a bit of a pencil potpourri, if you will (not literally—that probably wouldn't smell very good). It's also partially dedicated to our elementary school gym teacher, Mr. Powell, "who is a special friend, and has taught me many things I'll never forget." Is it just me, or is that a little weird? Especially in light of the whole pencils-being-shaped-like-manbits thing? Or do I just have lingering ill feelings toward Mr. Powell for forcing me to play newcomb?

"PENCIL PALS FOREVER"

Some people think pencils are just used to write with. Well, I'll tell you something, they're not. When you leave school at the end of the day, what do you think us pencils do? We climb out of those little slits in the desk.

Sada says: Freud would have a field day with this.

Well, it was a typical day. I was in my owner's desk, tired because he had used me so much today. The custodians were doing their usual nighttime watch to make sure no one's in the school that's not supposed to be in the school.

Sada says: That's right, the custodians had to clean toilets, sprinkle sawdust on our vomit, and then? They didn't even get to sleep at night! They had discourage intruders from breaking in and stealing high-cost items like the gym parachute or our green-screen Apple IIs. God knows someone had to make sure we could still play Lemonade Stand in the morning!

When I saw the flashlight fade away, I popped the two paint tabs off my eyes. Paint tabs are little tabs of paint that I used to cover my eyes and other things [Sada says: ?!] with, so no one sees my eyes. After I pulled them off, I blinked about 20 times. My eyes adjusted to the light. I pushed 2 other paint tabs off the spots where my arms are, then my legs. I got ready and squeezed out of the slit.

I got up to explore. I was on the chair. I jumped off, and landed standing up. I ran to our usual meeting spot. PiLinda, Paul, Pete, and Petunia were already there.

Sada says: I guess there's a writing utensil law mandating that all pencil names start with the letter P. Hence the extremely catchy "PiLinda."

"Hey, Peggy." Pete greeted me. None of us were related because we got shipped to this school by different pencil companies.

Sada says: Whoa, was that just an allusion to PENCIL SEX? I was unaware that you could breed pencils. They didn't show that kind of stuff on Mr. Rogers.

In related news, I just did a Google image search for "pencils having sex" and came up with nothing. The Internet is useless.

"Hi, what's up? I'm beat. Today my owner bit me. I felt so slimy," I said.

"The feeling is mutual." everyone agreed. They were all older than I, and had many more teeth marks.

I leaned against a piece of paper. I was beat.

Sada says: It's hard out here for a pencil.

Your days are numbered, buddy.

PiLinda's paint tabs were almost all the way back on(she's sleeping).

"PiLinda!!"I called. Her paint tabs pop off and fly half way across the room. She looked surprised, embarassed, and tired at the same time.

"I'm sorry." I tried to look sorry, but I cracked up, not on purpose, but it just all came out at once. Paul and Petunia joined me. Pete looked as serious as ever. We tried to get serious. It worked, kind of.

PiLinda ran away.

"See what you did?" Pete yelled as he followed PiLinda.

I ran after Pete and easily caught up.

"I said I was sorry, and I am." I was getting mad at Pete. I think that PiLinda has an awful bad temper. PiLinda and I are best friends. I met her when I came from a pencil company. I know PiLinda well. I ran past Pete. I almost caught up with PiLinda, but as soon as she saw me she sped up.

Sada says: So basically, a bunch of pissed-off pencils are sprinting around a darkened classroom? Just checking.

Also, it has not escaped my attention that these two are named Peggy and Pete.

You want to hire me to do your pencil portrait now, I know it.

PiLinda was out of breath, so she stopped.

"I'm really sorry."I say.

"That's ok." she says. "I just have been through a lot lately. My mother disappeared and my father's gone too, but, please, try not to tell anybody."

Sada says: You see what happens when you lose a pencil? YOU TEAR A FAMILY APART.

Just then Pete walked up, looking REAL mad.

"Are you all right, PiLinda?" he asked her.

"Yeah, but I really need to talk to Peggy. It's important, but I would appreciate it if you went back and told everybody else we're ok."

Pete nodded, and started jogging back.

Jogging pencil clip art FTW!

(Not that this in any way makes up for the lack of pencils sexing it up.)

(Also, I can't for the life of me figure out why the pencil has fangs. Twilight, must you ruin everything?)

When he was out of sight, PiLinda started again, "Everyone has been ignoring me lately. I feel as if I belong somewhere else..." She caught her breath. "I miss my parents, and lately, I'm so sleepy and mad...but I feel so awful."

"Don't worry." I said and started to cry. "My parents died before I got shipped here." I sniffled.

Sada says: Angst: a universal theme in pencil lit.

"Oh-my-goodness." PiLinda said sadly. "I'm sorry. I didn't know that. I'm really sorry. I am."

"I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want any special treatment." I admitted.

"That's ok, I like you just the way you are, Peggy. Pencil Pals Forever?" she asked and started to giggle about how dorky that sounded.

"Yeah," I laughed. "Pencil Pals Forever."

Sada says: Aaaaaand that's nearly the same ending as the first story, with the disaffected pencils swearing their allegiance to one another. Pencils... so predictable!

If you weren't already in pencil paradise, this story is followed up with some pencil poetry. I'll scan this so you can fully appreciate the genius. It's an acrostic poem, in which the first letter of each line spells the word "PENCILS" (the "L" line is my favorite, btw), but also? Those letters are themselves MADE OF PENCIL.

"PENCILS"

Perfect writing utensils

Erasers at the bottom

Needs to be sharpened when it gets dull

Constructed out of wood

In them is lead

Like pens

Sharp pencils are best

Sada says: In them is actually graphite, but I guess I shouldn't quibble with a fifth grader.

In the book's final installment, Genie gets post-apocalyptic on our asses.

"IF I HAD THE LAST PENCIL IN THE WORLD, I WOULD WRITE..."

If I had the last pencil in the world I would write...

Sada says: The next section is handwritten in pencil. I know that seems like a no-brainer in a book called Pencil Tales, but the rest of it was typed. Perhaps to better impart the seriousness of this message scrawled by the world's lone pencil.

November 14, 2059

I know that in a few hundred years someone will find this and wonder what a pencil was. Pencils were things used for writing. They are made of wood and lead. (I am using a pencil to write this right now. Trees have wood in them. I have heard from my grandmother (who lived in the 90's) When she was a little girl, at her school (and in the whole state) was celebrating "Earth Day."

Sada says: Grammar and punctuation have degenerated by 2059. Also, trees have wood in them!

Earth Day was a time to think about our Earth, how to save it. At my grandmother's school they gave out seedlings to everyone. The purpose was to have 500 children plant them to provide more oxygen for us + more wood, etc. Earth Day also encouraged people to recycle. Obviously, no one did, or there would be a much better Earth today. This pencil is about to brea (k)

BY ARIA KAWILDON

Sada says: The final bit was in pen (which we all know is like pencil) because the last pencil in the world couldn't stand to write another word about the farce that was Earth Day. And apparently the last pencil sharpener in the world bit the dust first.

Here's my question: What kind of damage would we need to do in the next 49 years in order for a fifth grader to wind up with possession of the world's last pencil? Man, we better start recycling!

NEXT TIME: What is quite possibly the storytelling-est picture of all time. It contains an exercise montage. And a third grader with cleavage.

Anatomically Incorrect

As an elementary schooler, I loved to draw. Girls. I loved to draw girls. My magic markers and I had a pretty rigid "no boys allowed" policy. There were several reasons for this:

1. Boys. Grody. (Okay, okay, so hating boys was just a front. Really I loooooooved the boys, but sometimes a girl has to save face in front of her USA co-Crushers.)
2. Because I was so accustomed to drawing girls, on the rare occasion that I did try to conjure the male form, dude usually ended up looking like a lady.
3. Even when I managed to sketch a passably boyish boy, he'd end up looking like this:

Bo-bo?! On top of drawing them, it seems I had a problem naming boys too.

Bo-bo here—I don't even want to hazard a guess as to how that's short for Timothy, lest my gray matter implode—may be wearing super-cool sneaks and a mildly obscene sweater (don't try to tell me that dog isn't exposing itself to me!), but you guys? Where is his crotch? WHERE IS BO-BO'S CROTCH? Wherever it is, I hope his forehead is there too. If there's an opposite of the Tyra Banks fivehead, then our pal Bo-bo has it:

One-and-a-half-head?

And on top of that (literally), I gave him a Three Stooges haircut. I was not doing Bo-bo any favors.

But this was not an isolated incident. Take a look at some more boy wreckage:

No, that's not a fat suit.

Yes, I know it looks like one.

Jimmy Ray is all, "Bo-bo? I see your vacant stare and hillbilly moniker, and I MOTHERFUCKING RAISE YOU." Also, I submit that the only way Jimmy Ray could be more froglike is if he changed his name to friggin' Kermit—and come to think of it, that might be an improvement.

"But," you say, "maybe we should take the boy out of the sweatpants [ew!] and find out what a cool guy would look like." Well, you asked for it.

The face of cool. No, that's not lipstick.

Shut up! He's just a pretty boy.

I mean, the only thing that could make him cooler is a half-shirt.

Brief aside: My sister & I used to coerce our mother into making us paper dolls drawn to our precise specifications, and one of them was a "hot boy" named Chris (because Chris was my go-to cool boy name circa 1988) who's wearing a motherloving half shirt. Think I'm joking?

Dude. I don't joke about half-shirts. Well, not this time, anyway.

But back to A. Tanner. Once again we have a boy with lifeless Orphan Annie eyes. Once again he has a bizarrely shortened midsection that makes me question his ability to digest food sans medical intervention. And once again his name is printed with an enormous lack of subtlety across his clothing (though I think that's justified in Jimmy Ray's case—he looks like the type who'd forget his own name). So just what makes A. Tanner one-and-a-half-head and shoulders above the rest? Two things (and no, his stylish baby blue smock isn't one of them):

1. The hair. Behold the magnificently spiky hair!
2. The earring, a sparkling beacon of awesome in a sea of otherwise humdrum earlobes.

Yes, men with solo earrings were so widespread in 1986 that I felt comfortable co-opting this look for a third grader. But! There were very strict guidelines for male ear piercing in the '80s. The golden rule was this: If the earring was in the left ear, the guy was straight; if it was in the right ear, he was gay, gay, a thousand times gay! Because in the '80s sexual preference had to do with which earlobe a dude punctured, not which gender he wanted to put his penis in. And God for-freaking-bid someone might think you wanted to make out with another dude.

So, because Aaron Tanner was the cutest, most heterosexualest boy in town he had his earring in the... oh, FUDGE.

The right—and simultaneously, wrong—earlobe.

But hey, this wasn't exactly a science. Right, George Michael?

Earring in the left ear = STRAIGHT?!

[Image found here.]

I rest my case. Anyone care to Google Chad Allen's earlobes?

NEXT TIME: If pencils could talk... apparently they'd be quite cynical.

Show Me the Bunny

You know how when you were a kid, having a favorite animal was a Really Big Deal? And every time you'd be at a carnival or a gift shop or Carlton Cards at the mall, you'd pester your mom into letting you buy a miniature version of that animal? And you'd keep the entire collection on your bedroom wall in a wooden curio shelf shaped like a house? Well, for me that animal was the rabbit.

For full effect, imagine this filled with tiny, tacky bunnies.

So obviously, when we had to write an animal report in third grade, I chose to research rabbits. I enigmatically titled the report "Rabbits: Breeds of Rabbits and other things about them."

The report's cover rabbit. Note: Those are paws, not a pair of saggy bunny boobs.

This report was chock full of information. Did you know that rabbits aren't rodents, because rodents have two pairs of front teeth whereas rabbits have only one? Or that rabbits differ from hares because rabbits give birth to ugly, hairless little creatures with closed eyes while hares have attractive, furry newborns that can see?

On the other hand, I may have included a bit TOO MUCH information. One of the "other things" I felt it necessary to (over)share about rabbits? If they eat too many greens they will get diarrhea. Seriously. This report has the word diarrhea in it.

A large part of the reason for my bunny love was that my sister and I were the proud owners of our own big-toothed boxes of hair. Realistically, owning rabbits should have made us despise them. Our rabbits (unconventionally named Bun-bun and Cottontail) seemed to fear for their lives whenever we got within 10 feet of them and would use any means necessary to avoid human contact. This made the normal things you do with a pet—like, I don't know, petting them—exceedingly difficult.

Me in a dress straight outta Oleson's Mercantile, Cottontail (that damn Bun-bun was next to impossible to catch!), and my sister.

Because this report was about breeds of rabbit (and other things about them), I note that Cottontail is "probably Dutch." As you can tell, it was an extremely scientific report. It also has illustrations on the right way to hold a rabbit...

You can see I was used to rabbits expressing abject terror when handled.

...and the wrong way to hold a rabbit (which I noted as my preferred method—whatever, "professionals"):

"Most books don't say to hold them this way, but I do anyway."

Then I compare the Angora and Dutch rabbit breeds. Third-grade conclusion? Angoras and Dutches are very different. (If you were wondering, I got an A+ on this project. 32-year-old conclusion: I could make a KILLING ghostwriting reports for third graders.)

Here's the Angora:

And here's the Dutch:

But what does all of this rabbitry have to do with my burgeoning writing career? Well, learning about the different rabbit breeds inspired me to draft a book about animals. Anthropomorphic animals. Very fashionable, hip, and emotional anthropomorphic animals. Chapter 1? BUNNIES. (And don't get your hopes up—there is no Chapter 2.)

First stop on our Tour de Rabbit Breeds is the cottontail. Cottontail was not just the name of our pet rabbit, it's also a breed! Kind of like how Cy Sperling's not just the president of the Hair Club for Men, he's also a client. For comparative purposes, here's a photo of a real-life cottontail rabbit:

Image found here.

And here's my version, Cool Carrie Cottontail:

Because even when I drew a friggin' rabbit, it ended up looking like a prostitute.

You can see that the actual, factual cottontail rabbit has neither a pig snout, false eyelashes, nor fishnet stockings. Hell, it doesn't even have high heels or little ribbons on its ears! However, the jury's still out on its ability to duplicate choreography from Saturday Night Fever.

Next we have my version of the Dutch rabbit:

Image found here.

Dancing Denise Dutch (oh, the alliteration!) looks less like a sex worker and more like a reject from Breakin' 2: Bunny Bugaloo:

"Out of my way, fools! There are rec centers to be saved! With BREAK DANCING!"

Is it just her markings, or is Denise wearing some sort of facial sling? Maybe her jaw was breakin' also (zing!). But I stick by my theory that she has on fingerless gloves and fashionably holey tights. And maybe a prison-issued muumuu?

But my favorite here is the Angora. Which, once again, in actuality looks like this:

Image found here.

Mine, on the other hand? That'd be Angry Amy Angora:

Yeah, Amy (once again with a pig nose; though I owned a rabbit, I seem to have had no idea what their little sniffers looked like) is pouting huffily in a chair. Meanwhile, she has scrawled "I HATE YOU! Sincerely, Amy" on the ground. Man! I wonder what Passive-Aggressive Paula Patagonian would have looked like...

NEXT TIME: Why I never drew boys.

Before I end this, I'd like to give a big thank you to everyone who has been following 30 is the new 13 in spite of my spotty updating. Chronic arm pain and blogging don't really mix, but what can I say? I'm a rebel. A very sore-armed rebel. Also, I know about 800 of you (or maybe five?) are waiting to be guest authors, and I want you to know I haven't forgotten you! I'm planning to have some guest author posts up soon—although, considering my recent record, "soon" may be a subjective term. I'll do my best!

No boy bands allowed

Do we have to talk about how long I've been gone? I've been gone a long time. A long, looooong time. The past two months were unexpectedly busy, but now it looks like I will—just as unexpectedly—have a lot more time on my hands. This is probably bad news for my bank account, but hopefully good news for the blog. So... yay?

This installment of Every Picture Tells a Story was probably drawn during the height of my obsession with wanting to form a band. (Third grade? Fourth grade? Did I ever STOP want to form a band? Do I STILL want to form a band, even though I would now be in the 26th grade? The answers are probably, maybe, definitely not, and oh hells yes, respectively.)

Behold the titular girls of Girls Only, a band whose members sky-rocketed to fame after they adopted questionable pseudonyms and started rocking malls across the U.S. of A.:

Where to start? How about the band's obvious leader, Sax-o? And if you don't think a saxophone player could be the key component to a band, you clearly do not remember the '80s, wherein there was at least one gratuitous sax solo in every song, sometimes two. I think Reagan may have signed it into law at some point. What I'm saying is, the '80s? They were saxy. Like, this is what a saxophone player looked like in 1987:

Body grease courtesy of i-mockery.com.

Well, this and the littlest orphan girl on Rags to Riches, who I totally would have pulled a Single White Female on, except I was nine and Single White Female wouldn't come out for another five years.

After the '80s? Dudes with saxophones looked like this:

Small favor: At least Kenny wasn't into the "g-string with chain belt" look.

Plus you can tell Sax-o was the brains behind this operation because I drew a heart around her and gave her a rad belly shirt in the Before drawing:

You can't have an entire band of Plain Janes; someone has order the side ponytails. And I don't see any hologram-generating supercomputers around here—do you? Plus, it's really impressive that Cindy is a sax player WITHOUT ANY ARMS. Do you see arms? Or just copious hair? Observe her post-makeover:

NARY AN ARM TO BE FOUND! But who needs 'em when you have giant segmented pigtails and a saxophone that strongly resembles a fat banana? I kind of don't want to know how she keeps that thing in her mouth.

Sax-o's partner in coolness is Keys—which, quite frankly, I could only tell because of the handy heart encircling enhearting. Tell me, was slicking your bangs back with an eyebrow-level headband ever fashion-forward?

You are treading dangerously close to Geordi La Forge territory, my friend.

It seems like it would be hard to play the piano with hooves for hands, but this band does have an armless saxophone player, and that one-armed drummer from Def Leppard seemed to do all right for himself, so who am I to judge? You can see that Keys' awesomeness only increased when she started wearing choir robes instead of real clothing:

That has to be a keyboard, right? I mean, her name is friggin' Keys, not Desks.

If I could pick Sax-o's second-in-command again, I probably would go with Dray, because she looks kind of like Joan Jett:

Also loves rock 'n' roll.

You'd think that the addition of a drum kit would make her a total badass, but...

Noooooo! Make it stop!

Yeah, someone (read: me) forgot the "kit" part. It's like she swiped this from a drum circle on her way back from a scuba lesson. (Those are flippers she's wearing, are they not?) And just in case you guys didn't know what a flower drum song sounds like, it's this: "bom bom." The saxophone and the keyboard, they make music. The drum? Bom bom.

Next we have Getta, who looks a little like one of the girls in One Crazy Summer who got slapped on the back and discovered her face really would stay like that:

Sax-o: "Want to join our band?"

Keys: "Don't look so surprised. You can play... um... a large string instrument?"

WHAT IS THAT THING? A bass that must be played violin-style? And what kind of advanced yogi shit is she doing with her arms? Does anyone in this band have normal appendages?!

Then we have the Commitmentettes TrayLaas, identical triplets who could sorely use some advice from the author of Curly Girl:

After? They're basically the honky version of Crystal, Ronnette, and Chiffon in Little Shop of Horrors. (Yes, our taped-off-of-HBO copy of Little Shop had its fair share of viewings.) Oh, and on top of being white, they also have wilty, singing beehives.

Wilty beehives: "Feed us, Sax-o!"

And finally? Minnie. Actually, stop the presses, er, blog-publishing mechanism! Was I wrong? Was Minnie always the one in charge? Because she doesn't even merit a "Before" drawing, that's how frappin' sophis she is. You can tell because she has CLEAVAGE.

Oooo indeed.

She also has a scary man-arm (maybe she's been stealing everyone else's limbs and somehow injecting them into her right arm? ...or else she's an avid bowler?) and a bizarre Princess-Leia-meets-Orthodox-Jewish-fellow hairstyle, but? Forgivable. Because she has a fancy dress on and CLEAVAGE. Have I mentioned the cleavage?

Sadly, we can only imagine the amazing music produced when saxophone, keyboard, conga drum, bassolin, saggy beehives, and cleavage at last meet.

NEXT TIME: Rabbits in fishnets. I so, so, SO wish I was joking.

Prostitution People

This picture tells a story beloved by schlocky film execs everywhere: mousy introvert gets contact lenses, a miniskirt, and instant popularity! It's titled (what, you guys didn't title your fourth grade drawings?) PERSONALITY PEOPLE.

No, really.

[You can click to enlarge, but please rest assured that we are going to cover this in excruciating detail.]

Personality plus!

Our heroine/fashion victim/Jerrica Benton sans Synergy is Dora Lee Kawalksi.

You can tell she needs a makeover because she has a semi-dowdy name and GLASSES. Make me gag!

How hard has Dora Lee been gagging on her old she's-not-yet-all-that style? So hard that I had to put an extra exclamation point at the beginning of the sentence. Dude. That's a lot of gagging.

But this is just our piddling BEFORE photo; as the drawing promises, with Dora Lee we get:

Again with the extraneous punctuation. !This crap is exciting! !I don't know if you guys noticed! !WOO!

That's because our ho-hum friend Dora Lee is about to transform herself into... a straight-up ho?

[Okay, NOW you should click to enlarge.]

The fun has been AT LEAST doubled.

First off, it's obvious that Dora Lee has been under the knife. I don't work for US Weekly or anything, but I can spot the rhinoplasty and chin implant from here.

[Quick sidebar: When I was in college, a weak-chinned chap who lived on my floor actually got a chin implant—and it ended up CROOKED because he spent too much time, like, stroking it. Ew? Looks like the same thing happened to ol' D.L. Kawalski here.]

Once you get past the plastic surgery, you can see that the '80s pretty much erupted on this drawing, spewing forth the molten lava of oversized floppy bows, polka dot capri leggings, and shapeless off-the-shoulder shirts cinched with stripy belts.

So, she looks like a hooker, but a fashion-forward hooker. A totally '80s hooker. I mean, check this out:

Jet: confirmed call girl.

How else can she afford a ring on every finger; earrings that are, like, tiny lampshades dangling from dice; and OH MY GOD, is that a Watch-a-call?

But please, don't get all Lifetime-y and try to hire Meredith Baxter and Valerie Bertinelli to track Jet down and let loose some vigilante justice on her pimp. [Note to Lifetime executives: This would be an amazing concept for a series.] That's because, well, I'll let Dora Lee tell you herself:

See, guys! It's fine! Because she was already a prostitute on the INSIDE.

Okay, okay. Maybe she's not a prostitute. Maybe everyone wants to call and chit-chat with her because she has such a great personality.

Yeah, that's it.

NEXT TIME: What's better than one makeover? How about making over an entire band?