There is nothing more quintessentially high school than the prom. It is a super-commercialized affair with girls spending hundreds of dollars on cosmetics, clothes, etc. The cynic in me wants to say it’s all part of that “cheap shit” that is high school social life. But the other side of me finds it all hilarious – the jousting, the social climbing, the drama, and the never ending text messages about the latest gossip. It’s pretty funny. (What’s not so funny is that racially segregated proms still exist in Georgia.)
At 6:30 PM I met up with 13 other friends, in my rented tuxedo, and had dinner at a house where endless pictures were taken (in the era of digital photography, if you can take 1 why not 100?). Then the 14-person limo pulled up and we cruised around San Fran for an hour before arriving at the Century Club, the site of the prom. An hour or two at the prom – the main goal, as I understand it, is to just “be seen” – and then in the limo again.
Arrive at the after party, wash down a Balance bar with a few college sodas, yada yada yada and I taxi it home at 3 AM. I haven’t been up that late in years. Needless to say, dragging my ass out of bed today to get to the gym – and fighting my way through all the Bay to Breakers runners (a quintessential San Francisco event) – was pretty tough.
As you probably guessed from my away message, I, too, was a bit cynical about the whole thing. It’s hard to feel like an intelligent, interesting, independent individual while sitting in a salon having your hair curled. But once I forgot about how ridiculous it is to spend that much money on a one-night event, I quite enjoyed myself. I’ll survive high school yet.
I believe that Elena, you, and I have all used “quintessential” to describe high school in our posts.