Oh, Those High School Dances! Blog Hop! Aka - A funky night!

This is hosted by the fabulous Kelley Lynn and Emily R. King.

Here are the rules for participation:
1. Post pictures of your high school dances. (Make sure you tell us which one is you if they're group pictures.)
2. Share with us your funniest high school dance story.
3. That's it!

Now, I don't know how funny this story is, but it sure is embarrassing, and I'd say worth the long read!

The day is March 15, 1996.  The theme:  Tropical Paradise.  It's senior prom, the day I've been looking forward to since I heard about my first prom when I was a little girl.  I had to skip the junior prom the year before because I was part of the Close Up program going to Washington D.C., and there was a dance there, a fabulous dance, but that's a story for a different time.

Anyway, this night was going to be special!  I had a good-looking college man taking me (my bf for two years) and I had spent weeks preparing.

The morning dawns bright and hot.  Really hot, even for Tucson in March.  I borrow Mom's Plymouth Acclaim, load up the girls and we all head to Dillards where we have hair and makeup appointments.

I tell the hairdresser I want a hair-style that looks a little like this:



Side-swept bangs, volume on the top, and my hair down in loose curls.  I was very fashion forward.

Well, the guy can't envision my vision and ends up giving me a hairstyle that falls flat and won't stay in place, and looks nothing like I want it to.  Plus, he spends two hours giving me a flat hair style, making me late for my nail appointment.  I had acrylics at the time.  I had to race to the nail salon, was 35 minutes late, and because I was late, Debbie, my nail gal, could only fix the one nail I had broken that week and give me a quick coat.  She wasn't happy with me.

Well, I had to pay the full amount...and the fingernail she just "fixed" snaps right off as I'm getting into the car.  It's too late to ask her to fix it again, so I'm resigned to having a broken acrylic for the night.  Le sigh.

Did I mention it's a very hot day?

Well, I get in the car, and drive back to the salon to pick up the girls and my hair is a limp, horrible looking mess.  The guy "insists" he fix it and I need decent hair for the prom, so he proceeds to give me ringlets...that make me look like a french poodle.

But don't worry, dear, it looks faaaaabbbbbuuuuuulous(!) he tells me.

Ahem.  So, I go home, and have to try to tame my hair into submission.  Mission accomplished, but man is it hot, my hair is done, and I'm late getting home (thanks to mister fabu) so I have to do a whore's bath with a wash cloth to try to clean up under the arms and such.  While waiting to dry, I get a phone call, get distracted, and forget to put on deodorant before I get my dress on.

Anyway, Carol, my bff, and KJ (<--ends up being prom king) show up and then Charles, my date shows up.  We do the pictures, we go to dinner, and we get to the dance.  After pictures and the like, we go dance...and dance, and dance, and dance.  And it is so hot!  And then I realize, wow, I'm a feeling a little less than fresh under the arms.  And then it hits me...I forgot the deodorant!

So, I spend the rest of the night dancing with my arms clenched to my side, absolutely mortified that I may be funky...and not the good, dancing kind of funky, but the toe-up, reeking funky.

Charles keeps asking me what's wrong, but I'm so obsessed with my possible malodorous state, and can't possibly tell him!  I ask Nicole, another one of my friends, if I smell about a million times, which she assures me I don't, but I don't believe her.  (It only occurred to me later that, with all the sweaty dancing going on, everyone smells a little funky.)

Anyway, after prom, we go to the hotel room where we're going to have a bitchin' time with our illegally gotten Boone's Farm Strawberry Fields and Screwdrivers (Oh, yeah, the good stuff...gag.) Charles and I have gotten our own room and Tanya and Todd have gotten theirs, and then they go off and it's just the two of us.  And up until that night, I've been wondering if I'm going to finally give up the V-card?  Oh, but it's not happening unless I shower.  So, I tell Charles I have to go shower, then I get into the bathroom, get undressed, and...discover I've started my period a week early and I have no female supplies.

It's almost two in the morning, nothing is open, and I couldn't possibly tell him I had gotten my period - almost as mortifying as the funky pits - so I do the wadded-up toilet paper thing, throw on my cute pj's, and just tell him I've decided I'm not in the mood.  He didn't push it at all, but he was confused since I seemed really into it for the last...oh, three months and before I went into the shower. 

Alas, I didn't lose my virginity until almost 7 months later to another guy.  Charles broke up with me two months later because...well, probably because he was tired of having a high school girlfriend, but when we met up at college the next year, he tried to get back together with me and I said he screwed up and shouldn't have let me go.  And I looked good the day I said it, I'm just sayin'.  Vindication!

Ahem...anyway, here's the lovely pic of me at prom:

Notice the arms down low?  Notice the poodle hair?  I did the best I could.  :D

It wasn't the prom night I always imagined.