Friday, August 26, 2011

A picture of me in a bright orange dress

I was never into dressing up in high school (or now for that matter).  My uniform consisted of slip-ons, ratty jeans and a t-shirt/sweater/old man cardigan/old lady doily vest.  For occasions where I HAD to dress up, I wore my "nice" slip-ons, my "nice" dark jeans, and a button up under my sweater/old man cardigan/old lady doily vest.  At the ripe old age of 26, I'm still a jeans and t-shirt kind of person.  I can appreciate the fanfare of getting all dolled up, but I'm just too lazy to do it ever.

For some reason I really dug prom though.  I thought I looked decent in my dress, I didn't do that bad in the BIG ASS heels considering I'd walked in heels like twice in my life before then, I managed to keep my hair-do intact all night, and I even did my own make up!  The music sucked (I guess I like the song but who plays Sweet Home Alabama at a high school party?) and I could have done without 85% of the people there, but the limo ride was special and at the after party I had my toes sucked on a dare (changed. my. life.).  It was a novel experience for me, and it by no means converted me to the type to do my hair everyday (or ever) or own make up, but I definitely could understand why people would get a kick out of looking pretty.

So my friends and I decided to do it again the next couple years.  We called it Mock Prom and we went to Hooters in Downtown Baltimore and we wore our dresses and we even did superlatives on sashes (and we TOTALLY called Melissa on "Most Likely To Leave Her Man At The Altar"!) and I'm sure we danced in the middle of a street somewhere.  If we had the means, we would have absolutely had a full blown dance floor/DJ/crabcake dinner/limo ride home kinda Mock Prom.

I just recently found out that "Adult Prom" is a real thing.  A)WTF, I'm more convinced than ever that someone is stealing all my ideas and executing them on a grander scale and making money off my shit.  B)  I haven't read a single person have anything positive to say about Adult Prom.  Really people?  If it's the wording, maybe I can understand that.  Personally I think Mock Prom is way catchier, and it takes out the hint of patheticness that results when you lead another word with "Adult" (another example being adult diaper).  Most people though seem to have an issue with the fact that prom just plain sucked and you're just plain stupid if you'd want to redo it.  But maybe those most people need to get a sense of fucking humor.  It's as if everyone thinks just because some dork at the NY Times called Adult Prom "A Second Shot to Have the Best Night of Their Lives", that people ACTUALLY considered that the best night of their lives.  Yes, I bet the 60some year olds who have had weddings and children's birthdays and sleepover weekends with their grandkids think all that pales in comparison to High School Prom.  And the 30somethings attending Adult Prom think getting the keys to their newly built home is cat shit compared to High School Prom.  It couldn't be that they enjoy an excuse to dress up in tacky dresses and get their hair curled by a professional and it DEFINITELY couldn't be the excuse for a mani/pedi.  And I'm sure the nostalgia of a person's younger days have nothing to do with it.  I know I gave up sliding boards the second I turned 18 because nostalgia and fun are lame and evil.

Rich people have some sort of gala going on every damn weekend.  And have you seen some of the clothes that rich women wear?  Rich Person A: Hey, I'm having a charity event this weekend, please come and please wear a shapeless dress made entirely of sequins a la Golden Girls but somehow it's considered fashionable today.  Rich Person B:  Ok cool!  Hey I farted, please come to my "Release Party" and wear all magenta!  And no one is judging them.  I like to think of Adult Prom has the poor man's answer to that.  Sure, we'd love to buy dozens of multi-hundred dollar dresses every year for a business launch party or charity auction or any random event you can think of.  But we can't.  So we search the clearance rack at Sears during prom season, or EVEN BETTER, wear our original prom dress, then we stick a tuxedo t-shirt on our husbands and we enjoy a night of silly style and ridiculousness with similarly silly and ridiculous company.

And now that I have defended Adult Prom, if one is ever organized in Baltimore I BETTER get a free invitation.


All dressed up and no Adult Prom to be at.



PS  Just kidding about the toe sucking changing my life.  It was enjoyable in a that-tickly-feeling-intrigues-me kinda way, but I'm no perv.

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