Salon | Drama Queen for a Day

TODAY

Promises, promises
By Arthur Allen
Need words

Drama Queen for a Day
Share your pain! Win a dishwasher!

Table Talk
Are black girls better adjusted than others?

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Mamafesto
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

____________________
ILLUSTRATION BY
KATHERINE STREETER

Illustration by Katherine Streeter

D R A M A+Q U E E N++ F O R++A++D A Y+- - - - - - - >

SHARE YOUR PAIN! WIN A DISHWASHER!

Every parent has had one of those days when everything that could possibly go wrong does. One of those days when you finally understand the true meaning of those campy TV commercials from our youth, where "housewives" begged, "Calgon, take me away!" and shrieked at their kids while in the grips of "Excedrin headache No. 22." When you finally get the appeal of "Queen for a Day," the old game show our mothers used to watch while feather dusting the bric-a-brac and waxing the linoleum. "Queen for a Day" was the "Jenny Jones" or "Ricki Lake" of its time, offering women's true-life sob stories as entertainment. The contestants would pour out lurid details of hardscrabble lives and family misfortune and tragedy, and then the woman with the most pathetic story, as chosen by the studio audience (whose reaction was measured by an "applause-o-meter"), would be crowned Queen for a Day, complete with ratty ermine cape and bejeweled scepter, and rewarded with a shiny new kitchen appliance. Yes, it was hideous. But who among us hasn't secretly longed for just one day of queendom, when we can let ourselves whine without guilt, where other people do for us?

What's the lousiest, most absurd day you've ever had as a parent? What's the mishap or incident that, when anybody brings it up now, makes you glare at them and snarl, "Don't go there"? E-mail us, and don't spare the histrionics. Each month, we will select three tales of calamity and woe and put them to a reader vote. And if yours is deemed the baddest Bad Day Story of them all, you will become our Drama Queen for a Day and be treated to a free housecleaning session, courtesy of Merry Maids and Mothers Who Think. (If Merry Maids is not available in your town, other arrangements will be made.)

Our current queen, Catherine Salton, won the crown for her woeful tale, "The Long Good Friday: No Coffee, No Diapers." Overthrow her reign with your tale of pain. Submissions must be received at dramaqueen@salonmagazine.com no later than Wednesday, Oct. 8. Our three contestants will be unveiled Friday, Oct. 10, in Mothers Who Think. So get it off your chest. Go there. We're listening.
SALON | Oct. 6, 1997