May 10, 1999 I never told about Prom. Well, Mike has three light pink roses sent to my classroom with this little envelope during first block. Since I knew he was asking me to prom that day (it was April 13, if I remember correctly), and this was somewhat an incomplete message, I assumed more roses would come during second block. Well, they did, and they were dark pink. They were the prettiest of all, though the light pinks opened the widest. They came with this cute leela envelope, and I acted sufficiently surprised at their arrival to delight the girls in my class. I knew there would be no roses during third block because that’s PE and Mike’s in that class with me, so I conjectured that the finale would be three red roses during fourth block. To my absolute astonishment, I was correct; the message was complete. You may find this arrogant account of my Holmes-like deduction somewhat conceited, but its purpose was not actually to show my brilliance at all, but to consume space so as to ensure each envelope its own page. Now on to Prom.

I had a luscious dress — luscious is my word right now — already; I spent $50 on luscious shoes to match and mom made me some really classy accessories Then on Friday at work I slipped, hitting my face violently on the floor and bruising my nose. About that time I got sick, and though I’m not sure how I think the floor had something to do with it. However, I was all right, relatively, and continued my eight-hour shift. The next day my manager having “overlooked” my four-week-early day-off request for Prom, I was working Rhiannon’s morning shift, 8-4, so she could work my evening shift and I could go to Prom. Through the day I felt steadily worse. I finally got off at four, went home, and got ready for Prom. I looked beautiful, but standing there awaiting my ride and getting pictures taken of my I realized that if I didn’t feel better very soon, it was going to be a bad night. No matter, I thought, because we were going to a Chinese restaurant where I could eat plenty good, which always cheers me up. However, I made the mistake of ordering something I’d never eaten before, which turned out to be gross, so I fasted. At this point I was feeling so awful I didn’t want to move, and having worked 16 of the last 24 hours didn’t help much. So then we went to the actual dance. I’m sorry to say that the dance was terrible: the decorations were tacky and the music was bad. This would have been just fine had I been feeling better: a good mood makes up for a bad dance. Or if the dance had been good I wouldn’t have minded feeling so awful. But with things the way they were I soon fell asleep on a couch and they decided to take me home.

And as for Dieter, he was his usual self: he didn’t complain at all that I was being such a rock, and says to this day that I did not ruin his Prom night. He is the best boy.

So my advice is this: have your boyfriend ask you to Prom in a cute, if predictable, way. That’s the fun part, after all. Then turn him down and make him take you somewhere fun and less expensive. If he refuses, take your single friends. Prom is not worth the money your boyfriend will waste, especially if you feel guilty forever about ruining it for him.

It’s 10:52

<3 Mike <3