Pages

Monday, March 28, 2011

Prom "Potential"

Prom is over and done with, and now it's nothing more than a twinkle in my eye. (Speaking of which, my daughter had a little twinkle in her eye when she came home from the prom. Ummhmmm.) (Her hair still had a little twinkle to it too. In fact it looked prettier than when she walked out the door.) (Thanks Bobbi!) (It looked pretty the next morning too.) (And so did her make-up.)


(It's amazing how long you can stretch prom out if you want to.)


But Prom is over and done with, and it's on to the next topic . . .




Nah . . . let's keep talking about prom.


You guys wanna see the dress we ordered from China that hasn't arrived yet?



So while I was telling my daughter all of my prom dress nightmare stories from my own high school years, we had an epiphany together. One of them AH-HA moment thingies. Well, actually I had the epiphany. She just prompted the epiphany. After she declared, "I can't believe you ever got asked out at all, Mom!"


As the words fell from her mouth it dawned on me the reason my hub always says "because you had potential" whenever I ask him why he fell in lub with me. I think maybe I was never quite finished.


In other words, I was a little rag-a-muffin.


When your dad up and dies, leaving your mom to raise seven kids all by her loneliness, you gotsta get creative when it comes to dressing yourself for prom.


Besides, in my day there was no such thing as a pretty prom dress. We cut holes in garbage bags and promenaded up hill in the snow both ways.


And we liked it!


And anyway, so what if I had to treat my chronic allergies and cold sores with home remedies! That's right, I went around town with Kleenex stuffed up my nose and deodorant smeared across my lips. What of it!?


But fer reals, my dresses were never quite finished when my prom date arrived. I always had a roll of tape, a bag of safety pins, and a stick a butter in my purse, in case of a wardrobe malfunction.


But the worst dress story of all is the year I got asked to the Senior Dinner Dance by a preppy, rich boy. He was in my foods class and we once made a hamburger cake together for the class cake decorating contest--with real lettuce, cheese and tomatoes. Hee hee. I bet Cake Boss never thought of that. We thought it was stinkin' heelarious, but our teacher never cracked a smile.


He was an older boy, who also asked me to my Junior Prom, but instead of taking me to the dance he took me to his house to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail.


That was pretty much our last date. And I never kissed him neither.


But it wouldn't have worked out between us anyway, because he had a very strong aversion to Lionel Richie.


So when he took me to the prom I borrowed one of my cousin's bridesmaid dresses. She shipped it all the way from San Diego and it arrived like two hours before the dance.



EEEEEEK! I'm pretty sure I added the hat. (My daughter thinks I looked like Little Bo Peep.)


But his Senior Dinner Dance was way way worse. I was still out shopping for the dress when he arrived to pick me up!


As I recall, cash was very short that month. My mom had a beauty salon in our house so that Saturday I was frantically waiting for her to finish a perm so she could slip me some cash. There was no car either so I actually had to RUN the five blocks from the ghetto to down town Provo. My choices were JCPenny or Lerners. I picked Lerners, due to proximity, where I grabbed the best dress I could find before running all the way back home, huffing and puffing. My date was sitting in my driveway waiting upon my arrival.


Awkward.


I'll never forget his mom's face when she laid eyes upon me in my plain, cotton, Lerners dress.



Hee hee


Okay, you wanna see me and my hub before we were hub and wife? My hub also took me to my Senior Dinner Dance and Prom. (The next year.) (Only I did kiss him.) (Enthusiastically.)



Oh dear, I made this dress and it was completely duct taped together. I kid not.



I have no earthly idea where I got this dress. Probably from the drama dept. But YES, I spray glued ALL that lace to it to glam it up. (I figured since he gave to me his leather, I should give to him my lace.) 


Are you guys too young for Stevie Nicks


Anyways, my daughter got a HUGE, GIGANTIC, deep belly laugh over these dresses, but besides all the duct tape and spray glue I guess I kinda did have potential.



12 comments:

Momza said...

What a great post, Deb! You were a darling girl--sticka butter, duct-tape and all!
Every boy was lucky to have you at his side...obviously so is the one that didn't let you go!

Martha said...

Maybe you had a hard time with dresses, but I bet your hair was always super cute cuz of your mommy.

I was the opposite. My mom was a pro sewer lady, but my hair was always goofy.

robin said...

I'm with Martha, we couldn't afford to buy a prom dress so my mom and I went "shopping". That meant going to a store and finding a dress, taking it into a change room whereupon she sketched said dress, bought similar fabric and sewed an approximation for me. My home perms as a teenager were my downfall. My husband continues to tease me about them at least once a month.

springrose said...

I think you were a trend setter. For the year 2011. Look at those glove things. They are so popular now!!! I even thought how cute they were with the green dress you duct taped together! And I think you were totally stylin for the 80's big hair and all. I do agree that the hat had to go. In all my prom pic's I had the big bang and permed hair thing going on. My mom was brainwashed into believing you didn't look good unless you had a perm. It wasn't until I stopped perming my hair that I found out I have naturally curly hair. That is why my "perms" lasted so long! My sisters had to get two a year, I only had to get one. Go figure. All that money spent that could have been used on clothes!!!
I want to know what is up with your hubs eyebrows. Are they still as large (read ONE!?) (no offense intended!!???) I will be anxiously waiting your response to this question of the day!

The Crash Test Dummy said...

ha ha ha ha Springrose. My kids have been teasing him non-stop about his uni-brow. No, he has two brows now, and the weirdest part is that I don't even remember when they went from one to two. ha ha I never even noticed that he had a uni-brow until I moved to New York after high school and I showed one of my friends a picture of my "boyfriend." She was like "WHOA, that's some uni-brow!" And I was like "huh?"

So last night after all the razzing from my kids my hub looks over at me and says "how come you never told me about my eyebrows." ha ha ha

Lub is blind, I guess.

lunch box lowdown said...

My daughter was asked to prom for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Because I won't buy her the dress she chose, and the shoes, and take her wear she wants to go to get her hair did, she said no. (and I ain't no single mom... but a tight-on-budget married mom) It totally bugs!!! I went to prom twice wearing the dress I wore to be my sister brides maid and my senior year I wore the dress my mom wore when she got eloped. It never dawned on me to throw a fit asking for expensive things or else.

lunch box lowdown said...

Woops, that was me (I am LoW) leaving the above comment!! I forgot to switch over accounts!

Barbaloot said...

I think the dresses are....unique:) The one you and your daughter picked is super beautiful. I hope it comes soon and she gets to wear it to the next dance!

My cousin ordered a dress for a ballroom competition from China and it never came so...good luck with that:)

The Songer said...

Love the Dresses... And the Hats! They & You would have been such a hit at the L7 Garden party last week.

T's dress is gorgeous! Love the green....

and love the Ghetto Prom Stories... Oh if they only knew huh? I cant wait to be a rich snob that judges people! hahaha!.. Whatever! LOL! LaieGrl4Life! haha... okay seriously.. you should have grown up here.. you would have fit right in.. but then again you wouldnt have these Hilariously-Utarded Storied to share with us! Thanks for being brave and sharing...<3 ya!

springrose said...

I am very much relieved to know for you and your childrens sake that he no longer has a unibrow!! You don't have to let your hub know my inquiring mind wanted to know. I wouldn't want to bring up hurtful things from his past and all!!!

Annette Lyon said...

Lub the hats. You were so stinkin' cute! Just wait until your daughters kids giggle at HER dresses.

(The China one is really pretty. Too bad it didn't get here.)

Sandi said...

I have a crush on you.