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Off to Seek a Wizard...
by Erin Halfelven |
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My name is supposed to be Dale Steffani. Yeah, yeah, no relation. They had a contest back in my home town, a little place you may have heard of? Los Angeles, California?
Anyway, I entered the contest at a convention I went to for young amateur magicians. Yeah, I'm an amateur magician, emphasis on the amateur but it's fun. Anyway, the guy at the desk filled out the application for me, and he got my name wrong. He wrote it down as Stephanie Dale. And to add insult to idiocy, he marked the box for sex with an F.
Nothing would have happened of course, except that I won. Or, Stephanie Dale won. And it turns out that there were actually two contests, one for boys and one for girls. And I won the girl's contest. No refunds, no exchanges. If I fess up, I lose the prize. To collect I have to be sixteen or younger and a girl.
But the prize is really neat! Airplane tickets and two weeks training with The Wizard, the greatest magician of his generation! His tricks were so amazing that some of them no one has ever figured out. It was like he did real magic!
Okay, so he's a bit old fashioned but all the current top names studied with him. And here's my chance!
So I'm sitting in the airport lounge in LAX waiting for my flight to Kansas and I'm wearing a disguise. I've got on a blonde wig, and a short green dress with tall white stockings and maryjane pumps. Mom helped me do some makeup and pick some jewelry so I really look like a girl. Mom's a genius with costumes; I've even got cleavage! I look like a blonde Daphne searching for that silly dog. And Dad, who's also a magician, forged some identity papers for me that show that I really am Stephanie Dale, sixteen-year-old amateur magician.
But I'm nervous. So many worries. And there are guys here in the Airport Lounge who keep looking at me the way a horned toad looks at a juicy bug.
What if someone finds out? What if The Wizard finds out and kicks me out of his training program and the contest people sue me to get the cost of the prize back? What if I just can't convince anyone that I'm really Stephanie Dale?
The weather reports are kind of iffy, too, and the plane has been delayed. We may take off in another hour and we may have to wait if they put up another tornado warning. This is really making me scared I may never get to Kansas City.
And now I've got something new to worry about. I just saw myself in a full-length mirror in the women's bathroom. Well, I couldn't go into the men's room dressed like this! I look okay from the front I guess, I think I fooled all the ladies in the bathroom, no one said anything.
But after looking in the long mirror on the way out, I can't help wondering if this dress doesn't make by butt look fat.
Comments
Maybe, kinda, sorta
No indication here why he was marked as a female on the entry form, no description of him is given that would explain the mistake. Not enough here to really give more than a hint of how this is going to go. Oh, one thing: "...Dale Steffani. Yeah, yeah, no relation." I Googled Dale Steffani and Stefani with no results. Who is the other Dale Staffani?
Waiting for more!
Karen J.
* * *
I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. - Winston Churchill
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
A picture is worth a thousand words, no doubt
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
This is the way he looked at
This is the way he looked at the contest? There's more girl here than three-quarters of the GGs I know!
Karen J.
* * *
I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. - Winston Churchill
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Karen J. that is a picture
Karen J. that is a picture of Gwen Stefani, who he was saying he was no relationship and to my knowledge she is GG. Erin can tell us if this is what he looked like.
picture
LOL wow am i behind the times or something? Even with a name AND the picture... i still had no idea who Gwen Stefani was. I had to google to find out she sings songs that i've never heard before. Then i played a tune and found out why, omg that was awful...
No accounting for taste
I find Gwen Stefani's work very fulfilling, both alone and with her band. It is what it is with only enough compromise to get it out to an audience.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Roll the mouse over the picture
Honestly, what he looked like when he entered the contest is not that important to the story. In filling out the form, the names got misspelled and put in the wrong box. Someone may have later checked the sex box. How would the narrator know what happened? It's a five hundred word story.
But the picture at the top of the page is what he/she looked like in LAX. And actually that's a photoshopped picture of my cousin, Kate Melton. No, I don't know her but she's going to be playing Gwen Stacy in the new Spider-Man movie. :) (I'm actually almost as closely related to George Bush as I am to her. :) But she makes a nicer picture.)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Just wondered ...
... if the dress made his bum look big, why didn't he pick a different one? I mean, he must have had a choice for Pete's sake ;) And even I've heard of the 'other' Steffani, so she must be famous ... also MUCH better looking than G W Bush.
Nice one, Erin.
Robi
Thank you, Erin,
ALISON
'but once again 'old' Alison just enjoys the story,especially the punch line
wondering if the dress she was wearing "doesn't make my butt look fat".
ALISON
Heh
That line is why there is not more of the story. :) I actually dreamed this earlier this morning, including the names, and woke up laughing at that line. :) So I don't know what else happens either!
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Often seen as girl.
Because of my birth name, I was often put in Home Ec, Girls PE, and all that sort of thing. I actually went to the Home Ec class when I was assigned, because it would have replaced PE, which I hated. I was less than 100lbs, and maybe 5'2" then. As soon as the teacher saw me, she kicked me out and sent me to the office. :(
G
E'd be Lucky...
If er butt looked fat! I figure that most guys slim enough in their upper body to look OK in a dress, would not have bubble butts. After all, even if e gets changed by the wizard, e could just start exercising or exercise more.
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee
Ready for work, 1992.
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee
I'm just a girl...
Thank you for an amusing little short story Erin. :-)
"Just once I want my life to be like an 80's movie, preferably one with a really awesome musical number for no apparent reason. But no, no, John Hughes did not direct my life."
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
Off to Seek a Wizard
Ask the Wizard.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Whattaya know
I went for a walk with the dog and guess what? There will be another installment of this tomorrow. :) After that, who knows?
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
please dont leave this one hanging
Or I'll get you, my pretty, and you're little server too!
Dorothycolleen, member of Bailey's Angels
Hee, hee, hee
Thanks. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Awesome Erin what a magical
Awesome Erin what a magical story. Very cute, very funny.
Cute pretext
... and yes, the entry form is no real problem. Say Dale arrives late, the person with the entry forms is in a hurry. They scribble Dale's name and address only; don't notice that the form asks for last name first. A second person is entering the data into a computer, and quite naturally checks F and then adds the "e" while typing.
If all this happened behind the scenes, Dale wouldn't know how it happened anyway.
Hope there will be more! I'm picturing one of those cute magician's assistant outfits.
(and I didn't miss the hint that the magician's magic is real)
I once worked
with a nurse called Dale, and she was definitely female. Over here, not a million miles from Porsmuff, the expression would be, 'does my bum look big in this?' However, as this was a story about magicians, one would have to make allowances for spelling.
Angharad
Angharad
Transatlantic bums
Over on this side, a bum is a shiftless person.
Imagine Jack Kerouac sticking one of his books in the back of his pants and asking "Does my Dharma Bums look big in this?"
I suppose a butt can be a person, too, if they are the butt of a joke.
There is an old joke about a elderly parson who sees a performance of Twelfth Night at an all-girls school, and when asked how he liked it, replied, "It was quite remarkable: the first time I've ever seen a female Bottom!"
Erin, I know you wrote this a
Erin, I know you wrote this a while ago but, I'm loving it !
Hugs, Karen
"I look like a blonde Daphne
"I look like a blonde Daphne searching for that silly dog." For a moment I thought... but then remembered there was a much more famous Daphne, in a franchise titled after its dog.
Does his dress make his butt look fat? Is he "Becoming the Mask"? (another TVTrope)
I wonder if the mistake in identification was done deliberately. Maybe the person who took his name and sex was hypnotized into misprinting his name and sex?
I only noticed that this story was only the beginning, after I finished it and began with the comment.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
Changes
I wonder if the changes had already started.
hugs :)
Michelle SidheElf Amaianna