Ah, Prom

Ah, prom. Some kids spend all year looking forward to it; others can’t wait for it to just go away. Whether you’re looking at it in anticipation or dread, it’s still a big part of almost every high schooler’s life.

Since Style Quirk is celebrating Prom Week 2012, I thought I’d snoop around the Style Quirk offices and find out what people remembered about their proms.

This proved more difficult than I originally anticipated.

“My school didn’t have a prom,” one coworker said. “I went to a private school, no prom…no stories.”

“If you rent a tux three Fridays in a row, you get a discount on the fourth rental,” said another. I made a note of this in the unlikely event that I need to rent a tux every Friday for a month.

It was largely downhill from there.

“My date didn’t like the song I requested for us and dumped punch on my cummerbund. Hey, isn’t cummerbund a weird word?”

“I don’t know what happened to the bodies…why are you asking?”

“My therapist told me not to talk about prom.”

“I don’t know, I just work here.”

Since people in the vicinity were less than forthcoming about their prom experiences, I had to venture outside the premises and ask some complete strangers about their prom nights. This was every bit as odd as you’d think. Still, I made some friends, and I’m sure that one guy will drop the restraining order any day now.

“My boyfriend forgot to get me a corsage. I remember being really upset, because I equated it to bringing me flowers, and I really wanted him to bring me flowers. He spent a lot of money on his suit and just forgot the corsage, and I thought my outfit looked so terrible without it. I barely talked to him the rest of the night. In hindsight I know I acted stupid, but…teenage hormones take no prisoners.”

“I didn’t have a date. A bunch of us guys went together and just hung out by the punch bowl. My best friend brought a flask and kept topping off our punch, if you get my drift. We had a pretty good time even though no girls talked to us.”

“I went with a girl from my English class. She was nice, looked good in her dress, but I knew nothing was going to really happen. I was kinda bummed I didn’t get to bring an actual girlfriend.”

“My hairdresser ended up screwing up my updo…I don’t know how she managed to burn off a chunk of my hair but she did…we tried to conceal the damage with dye and a perm…I’d spent too much on my dress to not go, but needless to say there were no pictures!”

I was surprised by how few “perfect night” stories there were – granted, the perfect prom is probably boring compared to some of the exciting horror stories that turned up (some of which you’ll hear about this week), but I thought the stereotypical embarrassing moments were mostly movie fare.

Everyone else talked, so I will, too. My junior-senior prom was held in a revamped parking garage in San Francisco. I’m sure someone on the planning committee thought it was the edgiest thing ever, but I’ll be blunt: it was a dang ugly venue. The music was similarly atrocious; they said they had “one of the top DJs in the city,” but considering what the dude was wearing and his…eclectic…mixes, I’m pretty sure they yanked some guy off the street.

I didn’t have a date to that particular prom; I was the third wheel to my best friend and her boyfriend. Within an hour, we were so fed up with the entire program that we split, then promptly got lost in one of the rougher parts of the city. We managed to return to the relative safety of Fisherman’s Wharf, where one of the denizens looked at us, looked at me, smirked, and said, “How’s it feel to be a third wheel?”

I never went dateless to a dance again.

Readers, I know you’re out there. I know some of you went to prom, thought about going to prom, or actively decided not to go to prom. Post your stories in the comments! The best ones will be featured on the front page next week!