[LashStoat]

Spare a thought for poor Susie-Ann Krellingshaw.

Susie-Ann, as you will no doubt recoil, (and to your amazement) is still aged 11.5 years, and regrettably still too young to subscribe to the LOT.

According to her, she has achieved this miracle by discovering what she calls “suspended enemation” (but sometimes her young but over-developed mind thinks “emanation”) back in 2008. And before you ask, no, she is not descended from New Zealanders or Meryl Streep. Though her favourite doll was stolen by a lap-sang situe [sic] or similar “Large Chinese Breed”. Its miniature play-suit was found behind the TV set, as were the remains of the doll.

She recently attended auditions for a TV Talent Show called “Shoot the Stars”. It was supposed to be called “Shoot for the Stars” but the network tried to save money and put a singularly unskilled clerical person whose English was their third language. Well at least that’s what Anandalakshmi Tamoshanta asserted during the interview. Via an interpreter. Over the phone…pity, the power grid was working that day.

Anyway, the name of the show took on a life of its own, and the graphic artists built the set, rendered the advertising trailer complete with 3D flying logo, and didn’t think anything of it.

Now of course Susie-Ann’s mother Ethelrude, who is in fact my cousin’s brother’s daughter’s aunt twice-removed has always taken a keen interest in Susie’s (I’m aloud to call her that – but don’t you dare) development. ‘Rude tells me that she was humming “Ave Maria”, “How deep is your love” and “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” in that order during the actual conception. A little eclectic for my tastes, but it accounts for Susie-Ann’s interest in life, the universe and everything.

Unfortunately, that extends to tap-dancing, harmonica playing and pickle bottling, which was what she was doing during the audition (set up by Ethelrude) for “Shoot the Stars”. There was Susie-Ann, halfway through her tap routine “Ça plane pour moi” by Plastic Bertrand, self-accompanied by harmonica while pouring tomato relish into sterilized vacolas when the unthinkable happened. She missed the lip of one jar and poured the relish onto the stage upon which she was dancing.

This small mishap quickly escalated into something that resembled the scene from “Carrie”, but with a modern fusion of French-inspired mouth-organic fruitiness, a serious wardrobe malfunction, and sadly no displayed talent for telekinesis (in fact no proven talent for anything really, unless you count tap-dancing musical pickle bottlers as “up there”…but of course if you did, I wouldn’t be sharing this chronicle with you now, would I?). The latter would have been truly useful in preventing what happened next…

The set collapsed, taking its Flamingo backlit L.E.D studded neon-styled “Shoot the Stars” sign with it. This resulted in the studio circuit breakers tripping, which in turn knocked out the lights in the adjacent studio where a live interview was being conducted with the F.U. Power Companies’ C.E.O concerning blackouts in neighborhood.

I must agree it was a bad look, but I later learned things got worse when it was discovered that the F.U. Power Company was the major sponsor for “Shoot the Stars”.

Funnily enough, The Director of the show completely understood when the Prosecutors suggested that the name of the production should be taken literally. Susie-Ann was a little deflated (more so had the advice been followed), she’s recovering just fine, and has moved on to roller skates, a Jew’s Harp and dill cucumbers…but then I think she misunderstood it when the Director told her to “go top herself”.

PS/ Ethelrude is working on S-A’s appearance also…but “The Workshop” is a whole other story.