Getting Raunchy At Junior Prom

"Dirty Dancing".... still way cleaner than what I saw the other night. Photo from http://www.espritlibre.ws.

The other night I had the pleasure of working at a high school junior prom. Overall, I’ll admit that the kids were polite, the chaperones were friendly, and the food was free… but there was one thing I took issue to, and maybe I’m just too old for this, but  it’s one thing to grind, it’s another thing to practically dry hump on the dance floor in front of your teachers, principal, and a few unsuspecting strangers who happen to be working the event.

Whatever, I get it, they’re young kids having fun. I don’t have any doubts about what 16 -year-olds do while they’re alone. At that age, you are meant to push the limits, to see how much damage you can do before the consequences set in. My issue wasn’t with them. They did what teenagers do. My issue is with the chaperones who didn’t say anything. One teacher even joined in. Legit, he joined in a grind train while his colleagues laughed… And when one young man took off his shirt and started chasing an obviously uncomfortable young teacher around, no one said anything… this is until the event coordinator who I work for told him to stop and put his clothes back on.  A room full of chaperones, not a peep from any of them.

When did this all happen? My dad tells me stories of going to a Catholic  high school where a nun would come around and insist couple who were dancing too close “make room for the Holy Ghost.” What kids do at parties is what it is. But this was a school sponsored event. When did adults become so intimidated by teenagers that they can’t even tell a 16-year-old boy to put his clothes back on or tell  a 16-year-old girl to take her hands off her ankles and stop working that thing. One young man (the shirtless boy I believe) even got down on his knees while a young lady came up behind him and, well, you get the visual.

The highlight of my night though was when one very awkward, although seemingly sweet, young man asked a girl to dance. And then they dance old school to a slow song. Her hand in his, her other hand gently placed on his should, while his rested timidly on her waist. Amongst the dirty dancing, here was one the one shred of innocence we’d been looking for. I looked to the couple and then to my co-worker, and he agreed- that is the way it should be.

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The Hulk in Taffeta

   

She-Hulk! from superherotimes.com

I’m telling you this story in full confidence that you will not tell anyone else (and yes, in posting this to the internet, I know I am telling anyone). As graduation approaches, preceded by a plethora of pre-commencement events and ceremonies, I found that I was in need of a serious shopping spree. Specifically, I needed dresses… and a lot of them. After going to four department stores with limited luck (I bought one overpriced sleeveless party dress that’s going to take a little more than a lot of double-sided sticky skin tape to keep up..if you’ve never used skin tape, you cannot even imagine how unpleasant the task of applying and, even more so, removing , the tape is), I decided to venture outside the comfort zone.

So in my time of dress desperation, I decided to go to a store that screams teeny bopper. Pushing my way through racks of multi-colored zebra-print hoodies, I found racks and racks of neon prom dresses. Tacky? Most definitely. But like I said, I already struck out at all the logical places, so I grabbed a handful of highlighter pinks, blues and yellows, and pressed on to the 1 x 1 foot dressing stall, designed in such a way that the door only covers your torso, leaving your legs and top of your head in plain view. I tried on a neon-blue number, with cheap little craft store gems glue-gunned to the neckline. I pulled the zipper up the back, caught one look in the mirror, and decided that I’d be better off wearing my business suit than this. I started to undo the zipped from the back, it snagged. Damnit. I twisted the dress around and tried to pull. Nothing. Not even a budge. I tried to pull the dress over my head. Nope. Tried to push it past my hips. Yeah right. So there I was, stuck in this taffeta nightmare.  

And I did what everyone reading this would do in the same situation; I called my mother into the miniature stall. She tried. We tried. And oh my God, that evil little zipper wouldn’t budge. I began to panick. I could not spend the rest of my life in this horror show of neon and lace. So I tried to rip my way out of it… I turned it inside out (while it was still on me….) and began to rip on the lining and rip out the zipper. With a certain amount of violence, I finally freed myself from the blue jaws of death. Twenty-five minutes later.  

So then I did what any upright citizen would do, I put the dress on the rack and booked it out of there– with my parents in tow. The entire time my mother was looking behind us, half expecting some skinny high-school girl in ripped denim to be chasing us through the mall.

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