DEATH OF THE STRYPER TRACY BETTS: INTERNATIONAL STANDARD OF RIDICULOUS HOTT-NESS

A Tribute To The Sexiest Woman In St Lucia

I think I'm gonna be sad,
I think it's today, yeah.
The girl that's driving me mad
Is going away.

When I was a 15-year-old horny, bookworm, comic book freak, Tracy Betts was the sexiest woman in the world. And it wasn’t just me. It was the whole clan of us who used to lime around Sunshine Bookstore.

Tracy was so hot, we made her the scientific standard of all female  HOTT-NESS. With two Tees, T. Two Tees.

We called her The Stryper. I can’t remember exactly why…I think maybe she was so hot, we wanted to whip ourselves with her and make her leave marks on our tender virgin skins so that we would remember, treasure and forever have momentos of our fantasy lives with her.

From the moment we named the standard after her, we could not settle for anything less than another  Stryper  (Tracy being unattainable to  us for a myriad  of reasons). You shoulda seen us in Castries after school, practically changing direction and turning on our reckless, inexperienced charismas every time we spied another HOTT one, saying in unison: “Stryper!”

We soon came to the clinical conclusion that there were not very many Strypers in the same category as Tracy and that it was somewhat unfair to share such an exalted honorific title with lesser mortals and specimens. That was the end of boy games. We all grew up after that and learnt, like men, to deal in the art of the possible.

It was years later when I smoked from the same cigarette as Her Imperial HOTT-NESS (it’s none of your business what was in the cigarette, I don’t smoke and tell). It was mostly over my crush. But I couldn’t help but think that I was one stepped removed from actually having my lips on her lips.

Later in life, it became apparent  that Tracy was a bit of a bitch. But that was cool with me because if a woman isn’t a bitch,  she’s probably either ugly or stupid and I’d rather deal with a reasonably intelligent,  beautiful bitch than deal with either ugly or stupid. That makes me vain and elitist, which means that in man terms, I too, am something of a bitch.

Today, I got the news that Tracy took the same door outta here that my mother and my grandfather took. I didn’t feel sad at all. I’ve seen up close what The Big C does to people and it is my considered opinion that until there is an actually cure, the best thing one can do when the suffering starts is stop fighting it and get your ticket to ride.

Later Tracy. You gave us heaven and you gave us. And now, you're leaving us here on Earth to work it out for ourselves. Bitch. We're going to miss you so bad sometimes.

And now that the Eulogy is over, let's pour some wine and roll some slims and sing some hymns to celebrate a life well-lived. We will now turn to the Beatles, the book of Help, Side One, Track Seven. Everyone sing it with me now... 

She’s got her ticket to ride…she’s got her ticket to ri-i-i-i-ide….