Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Go baby, go!

I decided to dial up Ford Models today and find out their criteria for baby models. Figuring I'd get a recording - this was Ford Models, after all - I wasn't prepared when a decidedly disaffected voice answered on the other end.

"Ford Models."

"Hi! Wow!" (I tend to get panicky when surprised.) "I was calling to find out what you need... what you look for in babies."

"Babies?"

"Model babies."

I could hear the woman sigh. She probably gets 500 calls a day like this, from parents who think their child is beautiful. It reminded me of the last time I called Ford. (Believe it or not, there was a last time.) New to the city and desperate to quit my job at Banana Republic (barred from the registers, I spent weeks relegated to the dressing rooms) I somehow got it into my head that I could become a hair model. So I called Ford. Why start small?

(1996) "Hi. I was calling to find out what you need... what you look for in hair models?"

"Are you at least 5'9?"

"You have to be 5'9" to be a hair model?"

"It's modeling."

Welcome to Ford.

Every mother is convinced that their child is beautiful. But there's beautiful and there's Beautiful beautiful. Transcendently beautiful. Ford Model beautiful. I have a friend with a baby like that - delicate, vaguely European. The child practically glows - and while my baby is cute as a whole button factory, he is not necessarily that.

(Beat.)

If you think that's going to stop me from submitting his picture though, you don't know me at all. (My kingdom for a faster aperture!)

1 comment:

Woman with a Hatchet said...

Five foot NINE for HAIR? WTF?!

Anyway...Will is terribly cute. Tell us how that goes! I toss the idea around occasionally, but where would we go? This is CO. Not NY, where you can trip over agencies as you walk down the block.

BTW, if you come to CO...I'll shoot pics for you! But I'm afraid you have to come hither!