Coming to a Suburb near Me

As I've mentioned, my mum is here for about a month. Not that she expects me to entertain her every minute of every day (just as well really,) but I do feel that I should take her to a few things here and there. We saw Billy Elliott the other night, and as a Geordie, I have to say that the accents done by American actors were a lot less painful than some I have had to listen to on British TV in the past.

I've been glancing through various What's On Chicago type web sites for things to do and came across something that is just burning me up with curiosity - The National Cougar Convention in the western suburbs of Chicago, June 26th.  Don't laugh - can you imagine the blog fodder coming out of that $20 admission fee? Not to mention the dinner party stories for ever more. I'm very tempted.

The promotional blurb goes thus:

Meet new single friends at the National Cougar Convention, celebrating the romantic combination of younger men (cubs) and older women (cougars). All ages are welcome to socialize and dance.  (My underlining.) During the night, one lucky lady will be elected Miss Cougar America by the cubs. The dressy affair begins with a keynote address from author Rich Gosse. (Who???)

7:30pm Entertaining Keynote Address with author Rich Gosse, http://www.richgosse.com (“This is a great book!” Oprah Winfrey)

Purrrrrr.....!

9:00pm -1:00am Socializing and Dancing. At approximately 11:00pm, one cougar attending tonight’s convention will win the title of Miss Cougar America. She will be elected by the Cubs (younger men) in attendance. To be eligible to win, she must be legally single and at least 35 years old. She will win a free berth on the Cougar Cruise, December 3-6 to the Bahamas.

It'd be great to win the cruise, although what's the good of only one free berth. Oh wait - I'm supposed to be single so I'd only need one berth. Oh wait - I'm not legally single. Drat!
 
The biggest question for me is "Who on earth goes to these things?"
 
 

 
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