Having recently finished their appearance in Atlantic City where they performed in the Miss America Conehead pageant, the lovely Orange Conehead ladies have been resting in my office and planning their next escapade.
They are such delightful company. They eat nary a thing and are usually rather quiet. So today, I decided to reward their good behaviour and allow them to take a short bike ride over to the shopping mall where they could see and pet an exotic wild animal and buy new shoes.
No sooner than I said "Who'd like to go shoe shopping?" that Miss Georgia, Miss New York, Miss Illinois, Miss Texas, Miss Louisanna, and Miss Confusion headed out the backdoor and jumped on their bikes and took off!

Poor Little Iggy, his legs are so short he can't keep up with the lovely long-legged lasses. Of course, the Pointy Hair Boss is just laughing at him.

They rode on their bikes like the wind. Their orange safety flags were a blur - who'd of thought the idea of sexy new shoes would get a young female orange traffic safety cone so excited? That's an OCHA for you though, you just never know what they are thinking.

Of course, they saw that world peas was a long way off, and that things were still a little ugly in the neighborhood. It was unfortunate these delightful lovelies had to see such things as this overdosed tailpipe sniffer.

Their ChaperCone was run ragged and I found her gasping for breath, "Iggy! Please catch up to them and keep them out of harm's way for me?"

I caught up to to the Beauty Queenies, stymied in their attempt to enter the shopping mall by two really rude and obnoxious orange striped barrels. What thugs!

I directed them to an alternate entrance where excited people in rows of cars waited for them. Their passengers all whistled, waved and cheered the young lovelies as they biked into the mall.

As a special treat, I had arranged with the Museum of Un-natural History to have a brilliant (and huge!) orange Dino-Cone on display. The geeks from the museum were applying the last moment touches to the exhibit when we got there.

Miss Georgia loved petting the Dino-Cone. I think she loved her new Jessica Simpson 'Esis' Flats even more though. Thinking it wasn't the best thing to ride bikes with their new shoes, I loaded the Beauty Queenies into a rented stretch limo and drove them over to a nearby nursing home where their fresh looks and youthful exuberance would cheer the lives of some shut-in cones.

On the way to the nursing home, I noticed this drunk wastrel in the gutter. I pondered, "How could sweet young OCHAs end up like this?" They have the world at their feet having conquered and taken over the planet Earth and yet, they still contend with such misery. Perhaps OCHA love is like Human love - fickle and only for the lucky?

Arriving at the nursing home, the Beauty Queenies took the place by storm! One very ancient cone was beside himself in joy - having an audience as he related what he did during the war. I overheard something about his being awarded the Orange Heart medal after being run over by enemy tanks and getting a Distinguished Service Medal having saved the lives of a dozen of his platoon buddies from some sort of Orange Striped Barrel attack. I really wasn't paying attention - I was just watching Miss New York as she sat there smiling and nodding her head.
Jimmy Carter-like lust was in my heart.
- Many thanks to Photojournalist LadyStyx for all the OCHA photographs except the first three and the last one - which are mine.
Addendum: I must give creative credit to LadyStyx for the "bike flags" and "drunk cone" ideas. I apologize to her for the omission.

