Prom!

In high school, I was never voted queen of anything, thankfully, then you get your picture taken or worse…video! And those pictures and video don’t go away. My last trip home, my mom was going through some old VHS tapes and one was my “Senior Class Video”. Which I probably paid $15 dollars for and wasn’t in one second of. I was probably mad at the time…but I am relieved now. There was a lot of footage of prom and it got me to thinking.

When I was in high school I went to 3 Proms. When I was a sophomore, my junior boyfriend (as in 11th grade, not apprentice boyfriend) asked me to his prom. It was a fun time, though there was another girl with the same dress: red and fun…but I wore it better (at least that’s what my boyfriend said…smart boy!) We went with a larger group of friends that had all met at a friend’s house to eat and dress. My junior year I went with a friend that was a boy. We went with a big group of friends who all came to my house before prom to eat and dress. I loved my dress: black and sparkly…however I couldn’t raise my arms the entire evening. It pulled the dress up…above the line of support hose that my 115 pound self insisted on wearing. It wouldn’t have been a problem, really if I weren’t so short and my date so tall. Tricky….. (No YMCA for me that prom!)

Now my senior year….that was an interesting year. I asked this young man I knew from a theatre production, he was a great dancer, an African American and come to find out an alcoholic. When I bought the tickets I had to write his name down as being my date. His name was Malcolm, after I wrote it down the student behind the table looked at the name and asked accusingly “like Malcolm X?” I should have known that this was going to get around. We had only one minority student in my class; his father was Japanese…..so sure enough when my mom went to get her hair done the following day…Malcolm was big news! Well as it would happen just a few weeks before prom, Malcolm had an “incident” and was unable to go to my prom because he was in jail…..busy.

Now I was without a date. My two best girl-friends had dates and the plan was to meet at my house eat then dress then leave. So my friend set me up with a blind date for prom. So we were all waiting for him at my house, in our regular clothes, when he steps out of his car already dressed! We high-tailed it upstairs to dress as fast as we could, meanwhile my mom entertained him downstairs. We laughed so hard it hurt. This was my favorite dress: a black cocktail dress borrowed from my 26 year-old sister. “Saucy” was the way my prom date would later describe the dress, or was he referring to me…I will never know. That was the only blind date I’ve ever been on. 

So while no “official photos” remain of my proms, I do have mine. Fun times…Why did I, and most of my friends think we need to lose weight in high school?....I mean seriously, look at my arms!  I wish my arms were skinny like that now.  Now they are more....muscular...yeah, that's it, muscular.....from lifting children and grocery bags.

And though I was not queen in high school, I am currently queen of my family.  Being the only girl has some perks...or so I'm told.