America’s Next Top Model 3, Episode 10: The Miss Kimono 2004 Pageant

Poodle: If anything, you should know that I do a full face of make-up before I go to bed in case I die in my sleep just so I will look at my best when they send one of those hunky firemen to break down my door.

Kumquat: Who cares if the fireman’s hunky, Poodle? You’ll be dead. Now let’s watch the show. Like what happened between these people?

Poodle: Okay this blonde chick, Ann, has long dark hair in that one clip and then in another and she wants Eva in her wedding.

Kumquat: Yeah, and Eva is doing dinner or something with Norelle…

Poodle: And now Eva wants Norelle to mess everything up so she will go home?

Kumquat: And Ann doesn’t like that?

Poodle: Or maybe she does?

Kumquat: It don’t look like it, girl.

Poodle: But look at all those people on the streets of Tokyo. It makes Times Square look empty. Oooh. Yadda ain’t the bitch. It’s Eva. No one likes her and there’s Ann, her friend, mind you, saying she’s fake, fake, fakety fake fake.

Kumquat: Oooh! Look at that house they are staying in! You won’t see that on Trading Spaces.

Poodle: I’m saying. If they let Hildy come in and shoot paintballs on these walls…

Kumquat: … they’d probably go through the walls since it looks like the walls are made of paper. Are the walls still made of paper in Japan?

Poodle: I’m sure in some buildings they use more traditional materials, Kumquat.

Kumquat: You know what I mean, Poo.

Poodle: Well shut up and pay attention, Kumquat, and maybe we will learn something.

Silence ensures as we watch the tea ceremony.

Poodle: They are going to learn to make tea?

Kumquat: I guess it’s not Lipton they’re drinking. Poor Norelle. She has no clue what’s going on. She even said as much. She can’t even get the door open right.

Poodle: Oh you can’t blame her for that. I mean the teacher lady was being a total pain in the ass about where her hand goes. Too high. Too low. Wrong angle. Hairy knuckles. The poor girl couldn’t get a break from her. It’s like when I was in high school and Mr. Scudder would take points off of our trig tests because our arcs weren’t properly curvy or something stupid thing like that.

More tea ceremony instruction watching in silence.

Poodle: The rudest thing you can do is to bite the sweets? You’re going to have to bite them sometime, right?

Kumquat: What is she eating with? Tweezers?

Poodle: I’m still trying to get these tea bowl positions right. In front of the line, behind the line, the right, to the front, up your butt. And then you lay on top of it? I am so not drinking in Japan next time I go there. How can these people remember all of this? No wonder they have to have classes.

Kumquat: I’m just wondering what Eva is wearing? It looks like some little bodice ripper thing you would see on those Harlequin romance novel covers my grandmother reads. And you’re right. She’s the bitch. I’m beginning to see what no one likes her.

Poodle: And the blonde chick is crying because she appreciates what’s going on. I must have missed something. Do you get what she’s talking about with the sunsets?

Kumquat: Maybe she’s a bohemian hippie freak. I dunno, Poo. We’ll rewind on the commercial break and watch again.

Poodle: Good idea. But I agree with Norelle. This so seems like a difficult place to live.

Kumquat: Or at least when it comes to tea. Maybe she wasn’t raised as a proper Southern lady like you were, Poo.

More silence ensues as we watch in abject horror as they now have to do a tea ceremony challenge.

Kumquat: They are so kidding me, right? A tea challenge? Break out the kettle and the bags – I don’t think I can handle watching that. COMMERCIAL! Be kind and rewind so we know what she’s crying about.

We now spend the next few minutes trying to understand what’s going on with no success.

Poodle: Call Jessica Fletcher. We got a mystery for her.

Kumquat: No, the real mystery is how Eva got that Cover Girl viewer award. I think UPN must have slipped something into the water to get that vote to happen.

Poodle: Are they pulling a Florida recount on me?

Kumquat: Ohio, Poodle. Ohio. Get current.

Poodle: I’m trying to figure out why Ann is arm in arm with Norelle right now. Maybe there is some lesbian love triangle going on that we don’t know about. I’ll ask Phil about it tomorrow.

Kumquat: Call me when you get an answer. I’d like to know that one, too.

More silence as we watch the rules for the tea competition being told while they all get suited up in kimonos.

Poodle: Did you just hear that? Oh we’re so replaying Norelle on the next commercial break. Osaki (or however you spell it) is “old socks and bikini” to her. That’s so precious. I love her. And you know what that means.

Kumquat: Uh huh. She doesn’t stand a chance in hell of winning.

Poodle: It always seems to happen that way, doesn’t it?