Another year, another Miss USA falls on her keister. When it comes to avoiding mishaps, I prefer to learn from other people’s mistakes. Why should I have to burn my hand on the stove if I can watch someone else do? It looked pretty painful when they did it; I feel no need to verify their misery.
Last year, Miss USA fell. That was a learning experience for all future pageant participants. Apparently Miss USA, Crystle Stewart, didn’t feel the same way. But she does now. From MSNBC:
Crystle Stewart has some advice for her successor as Miss USA: Ditch the evening gown.
“I would tell her to put grips on the bottom of her shoes and wear a short dress, not a long gown,” the reigning Miss USA told TODAY’s Matt Lauer and Ann Curry Monday via telephone from the Vietnamese resort of Nha Trang. During the Miss Universe competition on Saturday night, she became the second consecutive Miss USA to do a butt-plant on live television during the evening gown competition.
Stewart, a 26-year-old Texan, handled the tumble with a trouper’s aplomb: She put on a radiant smile as she picked herself up and clapped her hands over her head, as if to say, “I meant to do that.”
She dismissed any idea that there might be a cosmic conspiracy to upend Miss USA candidates. “Maybe somebody dropped marbles or something,” she laughed. “It’s just such a coincidence that two years back-to-back Miss USA falls.”
Curry asked her to replay the embarrassing tumble.
“Oh, man, you know, I walked out and tripped on the step and my dress got caught under my shoe,” she related. “It was almost like I was on roller skates, and I just fell.”
Stewart said she hadn’t been thinking about Miss USA 2007 Rachel Smith’s tumble in last year’s pageant, which was held in Mexico.
“When I was walking out, the last thing on my mind was falling,” Stewart said. “One thing you don’t want to do in an evening gown is trip … and fall on your bottom. The thing is how you handle it. You just pick yourself up — in life in general.”
Of course many people are misapplying this life lesson as an example of “negative thinking working against you”. They say ” I cannot help but thinking that this was a case of negative thinking. Perhaps it was stuck in her head that Miss U.S.A. fell last year and she couldn’t get it out. ” I call BS. Big time.
If she was really using negative thinking, she would have thought “Gee, last year Miss USA fell on her can. This year, I’ll wear a slightly shorter dress and avoid falling altogether.” Advice she now readily gives!
She was probably “Positive” she wouldn’t make the same mistake and viola…history repeats itself.
BE positive…THINK negative.
