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| Senior Prom. | | Date Created: Feb 03, 2005, 01:15 PM |
Growing up, I learned "If you fall, you have to get right back up on that horse." I don't know where I learned that because we didn't have horses. We did have cows, which were so tame you could ride them. Anyway, after my Junior Prom, you'd think I deserved a nice happy Senior Prom. Alas, fate had a different idea. Think of this as Part Two of "Events that Made Me Gay."
It really was all her fault. We'll call her "Polly." I had a crush on Polly since my sophomore year when she and I were assigned to be "partners" in show choir. She was friendly, and pretty, and funny, and had huuuuuuge ... tracts of land. Ginormous. We called her Polly Parton behind her back because we were rrrrreeeally mature high school boys. Apparently I was into boobages back when I was pretending to be a little straight boy. Now I like them in an abstract way. Sort of the same way that I like the Chippendale top on the AT&T building. It's an interesting ornamentation.
Anyway, I had a crush on Polly for three years and everyone in the school knew it, but Polly. Polly, you see, was dating a guy named Dave, who was a "burn out" who used to be the drummer for the show choir, but had gotten kicked out for smoking. He might have even been a -- *gulp* -- "pot head." Dave was everything I wasn't: cool, a smoker, coordinated, a jerk, heterosexual. (Since high school, I've done my best to emulate Dave. Alas, two out of five isn't a very good record, and I've resigned myself that there are just some things about him I'll never ever be -- like coordinated.) I guess I never had a chance.
Until... One day, a month before Prom, I walk into the choir room and Polly was sitting there, looking all dejected. I sit next to her and ask what's wrong.
"Dave and I broke up," she says.
"Oh, that's too bad. I'm sorry to hear that," I respond, mentally dancing a jig. Then I give her a friendly hug. Oh yes, her boobages smashed against me, my hands start sweating for no reason, and I find it hard to breath, but fortunately the bell goes off and class starts, because if I had to talk to her for one more second I probably would have thrown up or something. Whew! I'm saved from embarrassment when we start rehearsing an Air Supply medley.
So, I wait the appointed "high school mourning time" which was like a week. The whole time my male friends are encouraging me to ask her out, "This is it, man...it's your time!" "It was meant to be!" "Just ask her, I bet she's dying to go out with you!" "Man she's got huge tits." Stuff like that.
You see, this was indeed a big deal. A. Very. Big. Deal. Every guy knows that no girl can resist a gangly teenager in a tux and mullet. Every guy knows that the combination of crepe paper streamers, bad punch, slow dances to rock ballads, and metallic confetti puts any woman in a mood that can best be described as, "randy." And I needed me some of that. I was about to graduate and was, as I was constantly reminded by each and every male friend I had, the only male virgin over the age of 13 in a 200 square mile radius. So, I had a Senior Goal: to get laid before I graduate. My male friends all had a Senior Goal: to get Alan laid before he graduates. The girls in my school all had a Senior Goal (whether they were seniors or not): ignore Alan.
This was my chance for true happiness, the culmination of a three year crush, and the opportunity to actually get past the on-deck circle, if you know what I mean.
A week or so later, I walk into the choir room before class. And there, in a tight fitting sweater is Polly, looking lovely as usual, with her golden shoulder length hair with that little puffy thing in the front (this was 1989.) In show choir we had to introduce our partners before each show, and while everyone else would introduce their partner with a bored, "This is so-and-so," I'd always introduce her as "the lovely and talented Polly M-----." Anyway, I walk in and sit next to her, steeling myself to pop the question when suddenly she turns to me and says:
"Alan! Guess what! Dave and I got back together!"
"Hey! That's great!" I smile. David you scumbag. You're no good for her. You're a smoker and a burn out and a pot head. And besides this is my Senior Prom! And you already graduated, you loser! Then reality sets in: I have to find someone to go to Prom with. Now.
By this point, it's only a few weeks before Prom. Another friend, Heather, who was also in show choir, knew of my predicament and offered to go with me as friends. She had a boyfriend who was like 24, but she said he wouldn't mind because we were just going as friends. That was fine by me. The Senior Goal was one thing, but I sure wasn't going to miss my Senior Prom, and I certainly couldn't go alone! (Guys who went without dates were suspected of being .... fairies. Even the geekiest, nerdiest, smelliest FFA guy would find something to go with.)
So I make all the arrangements: bought tickets, rented a tux (with a royale blue bowtie and cummerbund this time), made reservations at a posh restaurant in Grand Rapids called "Churchills," and talked my Dad into letting me borrow his pickup. (Sound familiar? I was such a one-trick-pony.)
About a week later, Heather didn't show up for choir. Then she didn't show up the next day, or the next day. This was near the end of the school year and we had lots of performances lined up. But she didn't show up the next day either. So our director called her house. He came back into the choir room and told us, "I just talked to Heather's mom. Apparently Heather has run away to Florida with her boyfriend."
Dammit! 2 weeks and no date! Oh yeah, and Heather's gone -- whatever. No date!!
By this time, I'm desperate. Crazy desperate. Wandering the orange carpeted high school hallways with a glazed over, whacked out look in my eye -- think "Whitney in a Crack House." Must. Find. Date.
My friend Leighann decides to set me up with her friend Gerry. (pronounced Jerry...but it was a girl.) This was a girl I ... knew of, but that's it. She wasn't unattractive, she wasn't a freak. She just wasn't noticeable. She only had two things going for her, and they weren't the two things Polly had going for her, that's for sure. But 1) Gerry didn't have a date, and 2) she had a royal blue dress. Thus, just before third hour Band (yeah, I was in band and choir and drama ... it was the queer Headstart program) I asked Gerry to go to prom with me and she said, "Yeah, sure." Sigh.
Later that day, sixth hour choir comes around. I walk into the choir room and Polly is sitting in her chair looking all dejected.
"Dave and I broke up."
Polly went to the Prom alone because I kept my word to Gerry. Gerry and I only danced a couple times, and mostly just hung out with our friends drank bad punch. The crepe paper streamers and confetti had no power over either of us that night. We left the very second after "Stairway to Heaven" was over. Polly stayed only about an hour and left. I got Gerry home by 11PM. I think I was in bed by 11:05PM.
Oh. Wondering about the Senior Goal? On the last day of classes that year, all the girls in my 4th Hour Government class presented me with one of those plastic Hawaiian leis (which I still have in a scrapbook somewhere.) That was as close as I got that year to achieving my goal. And somewhere in this world, there is video footage of me in my graduation cap and gown, in line, waiting to receive my diploma, looking at my watch and at my friend Lucretia in the front row, and back at my watch and back at Lucretia, as she nearly falls on the floor laughing.
Stay tuned for our next episode of "Events That Made Me Gay." |
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