The EGOTist On: My First Stage Win

I told y'all about my first stage defeat/horror (not the last time I thought a giant reptile would end my life). So to balance it out here's my first stage triumph.

This is before I decided to become an actor, back when performing was still just playing in my mind.

I was 3 years old and the Simpsons were doing a big promotional event at a bookstore just outside the city. My grandmother packed my older cousin and I into the car and drove us out there.

The place was swarmed. I remember super tall people everywhere (because who isn't tall to a 3 year-old). The man onstage announced a contest. It echoed out over the loudspeakers. Whoever gave the best Maggie impersonation would win a prize.

Of course that would be me, I thought in the fearless way of children. Silently I left my grandma and wound my way through a sea of legs to get to the stage. My grandma says one minute I was beside her and the next I was up on the stage. I feel like someone helped me up the stairs (they had to, I was 3) and I lined up with the rest of the contestants.

Each person gave their best pacifier-sucking impersonation. And then they finally got to me.

"What's your name?"

"Brittany," I said directly into the microphone.

"How old are you?"

"Three."

I grabbed hold of the mic and gave it my best shot.

The crowd went wild!

The emcee went down the line again, holding a hand over each of our heads to measure the audience's reaction. When he got back to me, they went bonkers. The winner was obvious.

I don't know if I won because I was an adorable and precocious toddler or if it's because I was actually the best. I like to think it was the latter but it doesn't really matter because I was the one who left that stage with the adult large Simpson's t-shirt that fit me like a ballgown.

I wish I could find that shirt now.

What was the first risk you remember taking?

Love,

The EGOTist