Empty Nesting: A Dress Rehearsal

It's prom night. Anyone remember it?

My daughter is attending, yet in an administrative capacity. She's gone ahead and donned her "I'm-going-to-make-you-sorry-that-you-didn't-ask-me-to-this dance, you-immature senior bastard" outfit, as she and a friend have assumed tonight's duties of checking handbags, coats and boda bags filled with Mountain Dew and Red Bull (right?).

She and her friend have also been given the task of crowning the Wills and Kate of the 2012 Chief Sealth International High School Senior Prom, so I felt compelled to fill them each in on, while highly tempting and hilarious, not to try that stunt like they did with Carrie with the pig's blood. Apparently, it's only available at the Metropolitan Market, and she'd be spending two weeks allowance for thirty seconds of prom queen traumatization followed by supernatural vengeance. Hardly worth it.

So here I am, los lobo solo, sitting here in an empty house. My younger daughter traveled yesterday to Idaho to participate in a middle school music competition, accompanied by her unflappable chaperon for a mother. The only way I'd have volunteered for such a mission would have been stops in both Moses Lake and Colfax for some six-packs of Five Hour Valium.

For those of you who haven't experienced today's youth rituals visa a vis these annual high school spring galas, I'd like to let you know that it's absolutely ridiculous. Guys no longer just ask girls between classes and consummate the arrangement with high fives and side hugs. Nope.

These man-children often sacrifice their first quarter tuition at the University of I Haven't Got a Clue Yet for elaborate propositions which would irritate Mickey Rourke's character from Nine-and-a-Half Weeks. Seventeen-year-old gents, after confirming with their prospective dates' parents, will regale the girls' bedrooms with streamers, signs and balloons (at least I think they're balloons, but they're all beige colored with reservoir tips) or create massive scenes in hallways and lunch rooms.

Sure, I'm all cocky because my teenager isn't technically attending. She won't have the opportunity to participate in any after parties, since, as part of the support staff, she'll be whisked to IHOP to dine with the highly adult activities director.

A math equation comes to mind, one which Hawking and I have traded a few emails, but finally solved:
Crappy Belgian Waffles + Adult Supervision = Paternal Peace of Mind

It's nice to put off for three-hundred-sixty-five days and event which is so very pressure packed. These kids have put so much money and effort into the lead-up that their expectation of a magical night becomes a tall order.

I can only hope no one gets lost finding the restaurant afterwards and misses their reservation so they get seated by the kitchen and order champagne from the waiter since they feel so old in their white tuxedo and get completely laughed at by both the waiter and a few patrons, including Dave Winfield of the New York Yankees, who's sitting next to this hypothetical couple..

And then I sincerely hope no one shakes the valet's hand, rather than tipping them.

Yeah, that's something that only some idiot would've tried thirty years ago.

Dancing with myself

One of Seattle's local schools, Vashon High School, has announced that their 2010 senior prom has been canceled. A school official sited lack of interest, as well as controversy over student "freak dancing" as reasons for pulling the plug. Less than fifty kids had purchased tickets.

What a shame it is to cancel senior prom. I don't think these students realize what a rare beast a school dance is, what a ritual of passage it can be for students of all ages and what an extinct opportunity it will prove to have become during their adult lives.

I will remember my first school dance until my dying day. I attended Olympic Junior High in Auburn, Washington, and the school held three major "night-time" dances per year, as well as numerous "sock hops" after school. During that fall of 1975, the first such hop was scheduled for immediately after school on a Friday afternoon in September.

It was the beginning of my seventh grade year, the first year in a non-elementary school setting—in other words, the big time. We had been given ample notice about this dance, and I was petrified about it, given my ample girth and the thought of some sweet, young girl watching it quiver rhythmically from two feet away.

The night before the event, my dad had graciously driven me to the local clothing store, Rottles, where we'd purchased a fresh pair of Lee wide leg jeans, a silkish shirt and some new socks (it was, after all, a sock hop). I returned home with my new purchases, walked straight into my bedroom and shut the door.

The new duds looked relatively good on my portly body as I posed in front of the mirror, yet I couldn't decide what to do with the shirt. Tuck it in? Nope. My gut hangs over. Tuck it out? No way. It totally covers my butt so I look like Florence Henderson in a pantsuit. Since I had never danced before, I carefully watched myself as I tried a few of the moves I'd seen on American Bandstand. This didn't help my confidence...at all. Only my feet moved in spastic gyrations.

I wore the pantsuit to school the next day, my insides churning with the notion that I'd soon be embarrassing myself in front of the whole school. I toyed with the notion of ducking out at the last minute and taking the bus home, until she walked up.

"Hi, are you going to the dance after school?" It was Renee. She was in my math class and also the unsuspecting future mother of my children.

"Yeahhhh." My spleen throbbed.

The day crawled along until the final bell rang out, signaling the beginning of the end of my life. I tentatively shuffled into the dark gym to the sound of "Ballroom Blitz," removed my hiking boots and
set up camp in a dark corner of the room. "This works," I thought. "I'll just stay here, maybe for the whole time. Yeah, that's what I'll do."

"Hi, Tim. Wanna dance?" My head whip lashed to the left. She wasn't Renee, but she was a friend of my older sister's...and she was a ninth grader and she was a goddess.

"Okay," I barely muttered through my pinched throat. Every muscle in my body had clinched to near spasmic levels. She towered over me as she led me to the center of the gym, her long, dark hair nearly caressing the tops of her tight bell bottoms. I felt the heat of my colleagues' stares as the Amazon and I established our positions.

She glided effortlessly to the beat of something by Aerosmith, while I abandoned every move I had rehearsed, opting to focus on sucking in my gut. I'm not sure if I moved as much as swayed, but it didn't matter, as I felt the weight of a silverback gorilla hop off my shoulders and out of the multi-purpose room.

The song ended. "Thanks." She smiled as she turned and disappeared into the darkness, the fleeting aroma of her Love's Baby Soft lingering in my nostrils.

"Oh, no, thank you," I thought, as I returned to a group of my cronies, sliding victoriously on that new pair of tube socks.