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prom week day 2
04/29/2008 = 10:44 AM

Tuesday April 29 - Embarrassing prom stories.

I have delved. I have plumbed the depths of my subconscious.

I have, in the process, recalled every single embarrassing moment of my life.

Some of them, I have recounted on this web page before, for your edification. Nee and, also, ner.

It's become painfully obvious to me that, unlike some fortunate souls who develop a callous over their embarrassing memories, mine merely scab over, only to start hemorrhaging again the second they're triggered, spilling hot blood into my face and ears as if they were happening for the first time.

I often find myself changing the channel if something on television reminds me of something embarrassing I've done.

Some of you, who have been paying attention for a while, know that the reason I prefer Coke to Pepsi is that, when I was a tiny kid, the neighbor lady gave me Pepsi in a Dixie cup decorated with plants, including a sesame plant, and that, since it was then that I suddenly realized that planting sesame seeds from rolls was not going to grow a roll orchard in the yard, I still feel really stupid every time I taste Pepsi.

I digress. Hi, Kimmy.

So, yeah. I checked and double-checked. And I realized two things:

1. I don't forget embarrassing moments.
2. When I remember an embarrassing moment from that long ago, I am willing to share it.
3. I don't have any about myself, as regards prom.

Three things. Sorry, I'll come in again.

Seriously. I spent months before prom fretting about what might go wrong.

Practiced walking in my shoes, on pavement (to get the bottoms ready to move on a smooth dance floor without spilling me onto my arse or turning my ankle).

I tried on my dress (actually, one of many of my hetero-lifemate's dresses, because she went to prom like it was her job and got a new dress for every one she attended) about fifty bazillion times, and altered it to fit every time it didn't fit quite right, including the Big Night, when the Mom put in two more darts because, in those days, I was slim and gorgeous and too nervous to eat, and it was loose around the waist.

I ran up and downstairs in the dress and shoes, making sure I knew how to move surely and securely in them, without tripping.

I practiced my makeup and hair every single weekend leading up to prom. I tested so many products on myself that I was banned by AETP (Animals for Ethical Treatment of People).

The result? I was, for the first and possibly only time in my life, completely flawless all evening. (This, incidentally, includes my wedding day.)

I floated, where others slid or clumped.

My hair, with the help of about a quart of Aqua-Net, framed my perfectly made-up face like an ethereal '80s halo of prom perfection. Only if you were to touch it would you know that its soft poufiness was an illusion and that, were we to enter a war zone, you could hide behind it without fear of bullets or shell fragments.

My date was pretty much of a jerk, but he was a handsome one, and he looked awesome, and behaved like a gentleman in public. We made a terrific couple.

In all honesty, the most embarrassing act of which I, myself, was guilty, was that, rather than dancing, I spent most of the evening discussing two short stories I had written with my freshman English teacher, who was also our class advisor and one of the prom chaperones. She wasn't my favorite English teacher (we spent more time reading the class requirement books than writing anything), but she did like my work.

With all of that out of the way, I am happy to report that I did have a few moments during the evening in which I was absolutely, completely mortified. It's just that I was only witness to them, as opposed to being their center.

I would have to say that the following was the best (or worst) example.

Some of the people at our table had brought a bottle of peppermint schnapps. We would, of course, be checked before entering the ballroom, so the schnapps would have to be consumed in the parking lot, and it was. Note: at times like this, peppermint was the flavor of choice because, if a chaperone smelled your breath, you could plead not guilty by reason of Scope.

I declined entirely, more to protect my lipstick than from any virtuous leanings. My date had, I believe, one swig from the bottle, out of sociability.

Most of the bottle was consumed by J, not a close friend of mine, but at our table because she and her date were tight with my friends T and C.

As a result, J did not so much enter the ballroom as was sort of half-carried and half-dragged in.

She sat at the table, ate greedily of everything, including finishing my dessert, drank several O'Douls (we had an open virgin bar), then decided it was too warm, removed her shoes and stockings, and sat, legs wide open, flapping her taffeta and tulle skirts to create a breeze in her como si chiama area. (Como si chiama is Italian for "what is its name," and we used it in our community to refer to one's nortybits.)

The thing is, well, actually, the thong is.

Thongs had really just come out, or gone in, as it were. Many of us, including myself, were wearing them for the first time that evening. We did not want panty-lines, even under yards and yards of tulle.

No one needed to know that J had on a thong, nor that, since it was still the '80s and thongs were still a novelty, we had yet to learn that, if one was going to show people one's thong, one might do well to depilate (again, both nee and ner) beforehand.

In other words, the breeze J sought to create in her privates turned into a Class 5 public pubic hurricane really quickly.

My date, who had become bored listening to me discuss passive voice with Mrs. G, suddenly had a diversion. Guys on the dance floor were leading their young lovelies past our table in order to get a glimpse. Basic Instinct would not be released for another two or three years. J was showing now.

Eventually, Mrs. G noticed the sudden traffic in our direction and what was causing it, and put an immediate stop to the festivities.

J stomped off, barefooted. Mrs. G remembered her priorities and was now back on the case, getting her chaperone on. I took advantage of the moment to slip off and check my teeth for seeds, since I'd indulged in a virgin strawberry daiquiri after dinner (J was right about one thing — it was pretty damned warm in that ballroom).

Upon entering the Ladies', I spied a tumble of lemon yellow taffeta spilling from under the stall door and heard the unmistakeable sounds of dinner, several O'Douls, and half of my dessert being revisited in a series of loud, explosive, and unladylike belches into the Big Porcelain Punchbowl.

At times like this, it doesn't matter whether or not you are close friends with the woman in distress. You are her sister.

My borrowed black taffeta and I squeezed ourselves into the stall with J and her lemon yellow taffeta (and her bethonged pubes, exposed even more due to her having hiked up her skirt to kneel), and I held her hair and rubbed her back while she booted up foods people in China had eaten weeks previously, and sobbed about how everyone hated her.

I helped her get up, and put herself back into some semblance of presentability. I repaired her hair as best I could. I pried off the Lee Press-On Nails that had not yet popped off her hands, chipping my own polish in the process, and gave her my lipstick to keep, because I wasn't about to want to use it again after she borrowed it.

I did a quick flossing to get my strawberry seeds out, then walked her out of the Ladies' and gave her to E, who was T's date, figuring he'd be nicer about taking her home than her own date would. He was.

For the record, the following Monday, J wouldn't even say hi to me in the halls, and I later found out that she was convinced I had told everyone about her little reversal of fortune.

In the vernacular of the day, tcha. As if.

I wouldn't have had to say a word ... everyone either knew or guessed. When you've had a lot of schnapps before prom and flashed your como si chiama during prom, people who flunked all their science courses can still formulate a hypothesis and reach a viable conclusion based on deductive reasoning, and the combination of schnapps, dinner, and a warm ballroom just cannot end well.

To this day, I never hear the song This Could Be the Night by Loverboy without remembering J and her public display of privates. She's probably long since forgotten it, whereas I am still blushing.

Tags: prom week

drinking: chocolate yoo-hoo (i had benadryl first)
listening to: Aztec Two-Step, Baking
sad about: Ms. F's cat, Bandit, who crossed the Bridge over the weekend. Kindly note the smoodge on his sweet little nose.