Fearlessly flacking for fashionable finalist

I get requests all the time from people who want me to solve their problems or give them free ink about (fill in the blank).

To which my normal response is … “Whattaya think I am, pal, the order speaker on an Arby’s drive-through?”

But once in a while someone like Margaret Wilds contacts me with a cause so vital to America that I must turn down the TV and act.

So listen up.

Margaret is one of 25 semifinalists in More magazine’s “Re-inventing the F-Word” contest.

That’s right. The national magazine is on a search to award the person who submits a non-filthy “F-word” that speaks loudest about the entrant’s lifestyle or interests. The ultimate winner (and two runners-up) will be selected through a combination of public voting and a panel of judges.

The point is that we need to do our part to help this Spokane woman grab the $1,000 grand prize.

I’ll get to how you can vote online in a moment.

But first, a few more (har) words about More.

The magazine, I’m told, is designed for women older than 40.

This probably explains why I’ve never bothered thumbing through a copy at a grocery store magazine rack.

Well, that and the lack of nude centerfolds.

Even so, this is a big-time magazine read by 1.2 million readers per issue.

(The magazine’s public relations person told me that and I can’t think of any reason why she’d lie.)

The contest kicked off a couple of months ago with a photo essay on actress Jamie Lee Curtis. She listed her own “F-word” reinventions to punctuate her daily activities.

F is for 5 a.m. F is for fastidious. F is for family …

How sweet.

Too bad they didn’t ask me for my F-words. I’d have been a lot more honest.

F is for fajitas. F is for French vanilla ice cream. F is for flapjacks. F is for funnel cakes.

F is for fat pants.

More challenged its readers to submit their own F-word, along with a photograph and a brief essay.

Margaret Wilds chose “finery” and wrote:

“I was right when I was 6 … Playing dress up makes you happy! Now 47, I’ve made a second career of vintage clothing and I never tire of the finery.”

Wilds said she decided to enter the contest after reading about it while sitting in her doctor’s waiting room.

I find that hard to believe.

Er, not that Wilds would enter a contest. I find it hard to believe that there’s actually a doctor’s office in Spokane with current magazine subscriptions.

Wilds, who turns 48 on Sunday, is a fascinating woman.

An accomplished musician, she was the Spokane Symphony’s principal French horn player from 1985 to 2001.

She still plays quite a bit. But most of her time is devoted to running her vintage women’s clothing biz. Wilds sells clothing to customers all over the world through her Web site, www.denisebrain.com.

Her vintage clothing interest dates to her days haunting Seattle thrift stores as a high school student in the 1970s. Turning that hobby into a thriving enterprise wasn’t much of a leap.

“When I was looking for a new thing to do,” Wilds said, “I thought: ‘Why not do what I love?’ ”

So let’s get cracking. You can vote for Wilds by going online to www.more.com/fword.

A word of warning. More didn’t make the ballot-casting all that easy.

First I had to register with the magazine. Then I had to choose a password. But once I did their little dance I was able to select Wilds as my F-word candidate.

You can’t miss her photograph. She has a light blue dress with her head thrown back in a dramatic pose. Wilds is currently third in the popular vote, a More editor told me.

The voting ends Monday. Five finalists will be selected, with the winner announced on Sept. 30.

The good news is that you can vote more than once. So it’s pretty much like the last Gregoire-Rossi Washington governor’s race.