Prom

  It’s the biggest night of your life.  You’ve been looking forward to this night for years.  Everything, and I mean everything, has got to be just right.  He finally asked you.  You said you’d love to.  Now the fun starts…

  All the dresses.  All the colors.  All the designer names.  Different styles, different shades.  Your mother singing, “You’re not leaving the house in that, little lady/ I was thinking of something maybe a little longer/ Oh my God/ Over my dead body!”  So please, mama, please, I’ll be good until I’m thirty.  Well, I don’t know.  No sex?  No sex, mama, I promise.  All the other girls are wearing…

  Now you’ve got the dress you like, whew, relax. Relax. The hard part’s over.  Until you’re sitting at dinner and mom starts talking about prom.  Which suddenly shifts to drinking.  Which suddenly shifts to sex.  Again?  Again.  I promise, I promise, I promise.  No drinking.  No drinking and driving. Absolutely.  No sex.  No sex and driving.  I know it’s just as dangerous.  I know, I know, I know.  Silence.  Pass the potatoes, please.  Whew…

  Something on the radio now about prom, and tuxedos, and I hope Kevin’s gotten his already.  Your cell phone rings, it’s Kevin: “What color’s your dress.”  Berry, you say.  Berry?  Yeah, Kevin, Berry.  Like Blue Berry?  No, Kevin, more like Raspberry.  Like a smoothie.  Like a light purple.  Like a violet?  No, Kevin, not that blue. Oh…

  So you drive to the tux place so he can get a vest that matches your dress.  And this one’s close but not quite, close but not quite, close but just not quite.  And finally, close enough.  He gets it.

  So here it comes, prom.  You finally asked her.  She said she’d love to.  You tell your friends.  You tell your parents.  Whew, the hard part’s over.

  Something on the radio now about prom and tuxes and you check it out. Perry Ellis, Ralph Lauren, Givenchy, Michael Jordan, Zoot Suits, traditional, and the vests?  Oh no.  What color?  You call her.  Berry.  Berry?  That’s a color?  She comes down and finds one that’s almost Berry.  Whew.

  Now, what will you pick her up in?  You ask your dad to borrow his Escalade, because it’s cooler than your 1979 Gremlin, or Pinto, or El Camino, and the backseat is bigger.  He says yes, but you have to wash it, and no, absolutely no drinking.  Not a drop.  Not a drop, you promise.

  It’s Saturday morning.  You get up.  Wash the car.  Wax the car.  Polish the wheels.  Polish the wheels.  Polish the wheels.  You get the corsage.  Gotta pick her up at six, dinner reservations at six-thirty, Prom at nine.  At four, you start showering and digging the brake dust and wheel grease out from under your fingernails.  You shower, shave, into the tux and out the door.

  “No drinking, no speeding, watch out for the other guy, and I want my Escalade home by two!”

  To be continued…

-From Pulse
  April 28, 2005