Sew What?

“Do you make all your own outfits?”

That’s the question I get a lot as a drag queen. When you have three boobs, you can hardly buy things right off the rack. And honestly, the rack usually is filled with so much boring. What’s a drag queen to do? I do make some and I almost always embellish the rest.

I learned how to sew in Catholic high school seminary, making tails. My best friend Mark (who later turned out to be a flaming ’mo) and I were assigned the task of sewing up dragon tails for the comedy production of “The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew.” The knights proved their prowess at slaying dragons by draggin’ home dragon ass. The tails were simple enough — just oversized pillows stuffed with batting.

It was the only tail I was getting in high school. My inner gay was still in the closet. There I was, at an all-boys boarding school and my gay would not come out and play. What a waste! (Pun intended.)

When I finally did come out in college and fell in love with my first boyfriend, I put those sewing skills to good use. Christmas was coming and I decided to make Bill a stuffed elephant with some gray pinstriped suit fabric I found in a thrift store for pennies.

I didn’t have a sewing machine in my dorm, so I waited for Thanksgiving break to get home to my mom’s sewing machine and whip up my pachyderm.

As luck would have it, at the same time I decided to gay it out at the sewing machine, my dad decided it was time for an oil-changing lesson out in the garage. My brother Mark was on that like tread on a tire. He loved taking apart machines and putting them back together. I politely declined; I had an elephant that needed stitching and stuffing.

My father was none too pleased. To diffuse the tension, my mom interrupted my angry sewing and suggested I head into the garage and learn how to change some oil. I reluctantly agreed, sat through the lesson, and then dashed back to my pachyderm project.

Bill loved his new elephant. He unwrapped it at Christmas at home with his family, then sent me a picture of himself and the beast frolicking in a Nebraska snowdrift.

And as for oil changes? Well, I have changed the oil in every car I have owned ever since. I guess there’s a little butch inside every drag queen. Sometimes it just takes a dad to coax it out.