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Prom is better -- 15 years later
Prom season is here for kids as well as adults. Not many people get a chance later in life to attend prom, yet that opportunity has opened up to me several times since my husband is a teacher.
If you're ever asked to chaperone a dance, jump at the chance. There are few occasions which are so fulfilling.
Attending a prom when you are older opens your eyes to a variety of questions, such as:
Why do the girls spend more time looking for and trying on prom dresses than they actually spend at the dance? I'm saving my prom dresses for my daughter, not for sentimental reasons, but because I'm a cheapskate.
Why do the girls fuss and fume over having just the right shoes, making sure they precisely match their dress? The heels are usually discarded under the snack table 20 minutes into the dance.
Why do prom committees spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on prom decorations, which can't be seen when the lights go down anyway? If there's one thing I learned at weddings, mine included, is that no one really notices the details. As long as you show up, everyone will be happy.
The contrast between adults preparing for prom and the students prepping for the big night begins before the dance even begins.
First, there is getting ready for the dance. When actually in high school, the dressing segment from prom was a half-day event, at least for the girls.
For young ladies, it means finding that perfect dress that no one else has or even better, no one else has ever seen. It means getting your hair done six hours before your date arrives and hoping you have enough hair spray in the house to last until that moment. It means locating shoes which won't leave you crippled the next day. (If the dress is long enough, slippers are always a good idea.)
For young men, it means taking one of two routes. The more extravagant path leads through the tuxedo shop, measurements and picking up the tux. The other trail is walking to the closet and possibly finding a suit. If not, digging out a clean pair of dress pants (or at least a minimal number of visible stains) is an acceptable alternative. The thought of hanging out in a beauty salon for three hours the morning of prom never crosses the mind.
As an adult, it's finding a dress that doesn't have spit-up stains on the shoulder and removing dried-out wipees from dress-pant pockets. And this is all done in the 15 minutes before the baby-sitter arrives with the hair and make-up finished on the drive to the dance.
Once at the dance, the stark difference between adults and the students continues.
While the students are counting down the minutes until their parents quit taking pictures and leave, the adults are counting down the minutes until they can start their "strolling."
This involves strolling the dance floor and the hallways, just to make sure nothing "improper" is going on. Of course, this is a lot more fun for my husband and I since none of the kids we are "separating" happen to be our own children.
Then, there's the best part of the dance -- when everyone actually dances.
Once again, there is a precise method to the madness for both the students and the adults.
The students are leery at the beginning, then groups of girls take to the dance floor during the fast songs. Most of the guys venture out onto the dance floor, after being cajoled and dragged, for the slow songs.
Meanwhile, the adults are stuck to the sidelines, waiting for the inevitable. The final students will trickle out of the dance an hour before the DJ is supposed to quit, leaving an more than enough time for the adults to request a couple songs that they actually know.
I've always liked dancing but it's taken me about, let's see, 15 years to get over the self-consciousness of being on the dance floor. This is something most high school kids have not gotten over and won't for another, let's see, 15 years.