Me and my prom date, 1999Spring is in full fling round these here parts, and prom is coming up - I think there's even a prom movie coming out soon - so I thought a prom post would be fun for today's Flashback Friday.
So...
I didn't attend my junior prom and when senior prom rolled around, I didn't have a boyfriend. I had guy friends, but naturally they wanted to go with the girls they liked, not with me, their friend.
And of course I couldn't have gone with the guy I liked. Nope, that would have been impossible, because it would have required me to actually talk to him, and the one thing I never did back in my pre-college days was talk to the boys I liked. Much too scary. (boy-I-liked in this instance was in fact codename:Sam from my 7th grade diary flashback)
So that left me dateless when all my friends had dates, and I was bummed, assuming I'd be spending my prom night at home, sobbing into my Ben and Jerry's while watching Pretty and Pink.
Alone.
Booooo.
And then my grandma called me up (bless her heart - I love and adore my grandma) with the fantastic news. She was at a wedding several hours away from where I lived, and she had found me a date.
Yup.
You might be thinking, oh no! A prom date picked out by grandma! While I'm sure he has impeccable manners and pulls out chairs for ladies like the 'nice young man' he is, he is also most certainly too short, and probably hairy and troll-like, with insanely thick coke-bottle glasses and bad breath.
Nope, actually, this guy was very charming. I'd met him a few times before and he was pretty cute, I guess. He was taller than me, a year older than me (always a plus, right?). Had a kind of surfer/skater thing going on, and I've always been into the surfer/skater type. A date to prom! Like a knight sweeping into my life decked-out in shining armor I was rescued! YIPPEE!
Just one minor detail. He was also...
my second cousin.
That's right.
COUSIN.
And he agreed to go.
*dies of humiliation*
*and ickyness*
My grandma offered to fly him up from San Diego, where he lived, to San Jose, where I lived. No one would even know we were related, I was promised. Then I was given his phone number to work out the details.
It took me a day to recover from the news before I called him up.
"Thanks for offering to take me to prom," I said to his answering machine. "Really kind of you, but I already have a date."
Because, you know, I'm totally NOT a loser who needs to be set up with her cousin.
Yeah, I lied.
But the next day my super awesome friend Justin came up to me in psychology and said, "Hey. So. Prom." (I'm paraphrasing a little)
And I said, "Yeah. Prom. You going?"
And he was.
With me.
Yup, I was rescued from a night spent alone with a bucket of Ben and Jerry's by a knight-in-shining-armor after all. (thanks, Justin!)
My grandma was thrilled. She took me out shopping and I was dolled up like a princess. My best friend and her date doubled with us and we had an awesome time.
And 12 years later, I still haven't spoken to my second cousin.
*still dying of embarrassment*
Man, I hope, hope, hope he has forgotten that.
------------------
Speaking of prom - Here is a book that I must shout from the rooftops, because you KNOW I'm a Kathy R. Jeffords (also known as The Dreamy Giraffe) fangirl, and I LOVED this book, which Kathy co-wrote and self-published with her best friend (from highschool!) Sheila Lee Brown.
About Hope and Josie Go to the Prom (taken from the website)Dramatic, hopelessly romantic Hope Hawkins and witty, studious, level-headed Josie Green are kind of like peanut butter and jelly – they’re so very different but make such a fitting pair, you really won’t be able to imagine one without the other.
Told through handwritten notes, emails, transcripts, cartoons & diagrams, Hope & Josie Go To The Prom is the first in a series of adventures about the best friends.
Join Hope & Josie for the week leading up to their junior prom and you’ll quickly realize: This is anything but a typical tale about a high school dance.
I bought this book and zipped through it because I couldn't put it down, and I must say that I'm pretty sure Hope and Josie were 100% modeled after me and my BFF from my high school days.
The story and characters are fresh, totally funny and adorable, so if you know of a young tween or teen girl (or you just love cute and quirky YA stories with fun characters) check out the Hope and Josie website where you can read an excerpt. Or go on and buy a copy at Lulu.com as a spiral bound or as a digital download HERE)
And do you have a flashback of your own to share? Head on over to Tia's blog and join in the fun!
(which reminds me... hey, Jonnnny! Weren't you going to flashback today? I'm pretty sure you said you were... )
Happy Friday, folks!
xoxo,
17 comments:
OMG on your grandma picking your cousin for your prom date! That is ya material!
And you look beautiful and I'm glad you had a fun prom with your cute friend!
OMG...I was laughing so hard reading this. Too cute...gotta love Grandmas. You look absolutely gorgeous!!!!
Glad you had a fun night in the end.
Happy weekend!
OMG! Cousin?! Grandma, what the heck?
You look soo adorable in '99. My prom picture is not so cute. I'll have to dig it out. :)
And I laughed out loud, and felt embarrassed for you while reading this. Oh my. :)
Thanks for telling your tale of woe but it ending fine : ) I like to read these stories.
Following you through the EBT.
Come and say hello!
http://sisterbatik.blogspot.com
what a great memory, and an awesome grandma to boot!
That is a total EWWWWW (to the cousin) and AWWWWWWW (to the friend) story all rolled into one!
What a great story!! Shame about the second cousin, though. Do you think he was mortally offended or relieved? :D
Haha, Dianne, I can only imagine he was as relieved as I was not to go with him!!
LOL! You look so beautiful in that picture...and you haven't changed very much. I can't believe you didn't have a boyfriend! I also went with a friend. It was actually less stress going w/ a friend.
Haha! Love it! I can't believe you were considering not sharing! Anyway, totally ya material and totally are you beautiful - then and now. Such a kindness to us all that you do share!
BAHAHAHA! I'm so glad your cute friend saved you from slow dancing with your cousin (ewwwwww). You guys look adorable, and you were sooo pretty. Didn't you ever go through an awkward phase?! I was just coming out of mine at my senior prom *shudder*
1) You looked gorgeous.
2) Experiences like this one, I am certain, are a huge part of the reason YA authors become YA authors.
3) I'd never tell this story on my own blog because we know a lot of mutual people and I'm certain at least one of his friends occasionally reads it, but my embarrassing prom story:
I went to the prom with Sheila and two of our guy friends (the dudes with their faces blocked out in the picture in the back of H & J).
We were all just friends.
Actually, up until the day of the prom, it was just Sheila, Guy Friend A and myself supposed to go but I was absolutely tormented by how goofy that would look. So I recruited Guy Friend B to go too. (Which is why he is wearing a suit and not a tux in the picture.)
Okay, we go. I don't actually remember anything about the dance itself except a big debate about which Guy Friend would drive which one of us home after the fact.
Anyway, it is then Spring Break.
A few days later, I get A LETTER IN THE MAIL from Guy Friend B declaring his undying love for me.
Now, keep in mind that I didn't have my first real boyfriend until I was a sophomore in college and had zero experience with letting someone down easy.
And this particular 16 year old fella was pretty sure we were MFEO and, um, determined.
It seemed like once we got back to school every time I turned around he was slipping me another not filled with his declarations.
The situation was handled so badly by both of us that we went from being close buddies to not even speaking our entire senior year.1) You looked gorgeous.
2) Experiences like this one, I am certain, are a huge part of the reason YA authors become YA authors.
3) I'd never tell this story on my own blog because we know a lot of mutual people and I'm certain at least one of his friends occasionally reads it, but my embarrassing prom story:
I went to the prom with Sheila and two of our guy friends (the dudes with their faces blocked out in the picture in the back of H & J).
We were all just friends.
Actually, up until the day of the prom, it was just Sheila, Guy Friend A and myself supposed to go but I was absolutely tormented by how goofy that would look. So I recruited Guy Friend B to go too. (Which is why he is wearing a suit and not a tux in the picture.)
Okay, we go. I don't actually remember anything about the dance itself except a big debate about which Guy Friend would drive which one of us home after the fact.
Anyway, it is then Spring Break.
A few days later, I get A LETTER IN THE MAIL from Guy Friend B declaring his undying love for me.
Now, keep in mind that I didn't have my first real boyfriend until I was a sophomore in college and had zero experience with letting someone down easy.
And this particular 16 year old fella was pretty sure we were MFEO and, um, determined.
The situation was handled so badly by both of us that we went from being close buddies to not even speaking our entire senior year. I don't remember many specifics of my behavior, thankfully, only that I wasn't very nice about it.
Fortunately, we went to the same college where we both wound up in the theatre department and pretty much had to interact, so we became friends again. We had a couple of more, um, less dramatic tangles of him wanting to be more than friends and me not knowing how to gracefully decline, but it never wound up with me screaming at him on the phone at midnight the way it did one Saturday while we were in high school, thankfully.
And, of course, he is married to someone else now (proving that I was right and we were not MFEO) and I am fated to be the old spinster great aunt Kaylee brings her kids around to visit in about forty years and, as they say, they all lived happily ever after. (That sounds way more grim than I'd intended it to -- forgive, I'm PMSing...and 95% of the time happy to be terminally single.)
ANYWAY.
Thank you for the H & J plug.
Love your grandma for trying to get it sorted for you, even if not quite the way you'd have chosen yourself! If this doesn't make it into a book one day, you're wasting brilliant material. Thanks for the laugh!
I literally laughed out loud as soon as I got to the "second cousin" bit. Grandmas. You gotta love 'em, right?
I went to my senior prom with a bunch of my girlfriends. I tell myself it's not because we were a bunch of losers, but because we were too mature for HS boys. Um, yeah . . .
You have the cutest stories! And thank goodness for super awesome friend Justin for saving the day :)
You looked so pretty :) How did I miss this post, BTW? Anyway, given my prior Flashback where I finally admitted that I went to my one and only prom with my sister's best friend's brother (practically a relative only without the icky inbreeding implications), I WAS the loser that had to go with a pity date...so there you go! In turquoise lamee no less.
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