Morning, all. Happy Friday!
It's also Prom Night for the oldest.
Wow, that's HUUUUGE Friday then.
Oh yeah. She gets out at 11, has a manicure appt at noon, taking pictures at 5:30 and then dropped off at the venue downtown at 6. Big doings.
Ahhh, to be young again!
No. No. No. No. No.
I went to high school here in Enumclaw, which in the early 80s was far more of a hick town than now (and it's still a bit of a hick town). So, prom night, senior year, 1983. My girlfriend Phyllis and I are double-dating with her cousin Tim and his girlfriend Tris. Tim had already graduated three years earlier. They asked me to select the restaurant for dinner, because I knew the big town better than they did. They wanted something elegant. I talked with Tim and explained that elegant was going to be spendy. He was working for the water department, making more money than me, so he said spendy wasn't going to be a problem. In hindsight, I should have defined exactly what "spendy" actually meant. Hindsight.
So I booked us a reservation at Henry's Off Broadway in Seattle. I advised everyone that we weren't doing the tuxedos and ball gowns thing, or we'd be flagged for hicks. No limo bullshit. Little black dresses for the ladies, black or blue suits for the guys, and we'd take Tim's car. Tim looked a bit uncomfortable in a suit, but it worked. Classy, and not like a bunch of kids pretending. The families were impressed.
I knew I was in trouble after we were seated. Tim looked at the menu, then leaned over to me and whispered, "There's no prices." That's when I realized that Tim simply had no concept what he was in for.
Fortunately, I had a credit card - a perk of being a grocery clerk and member of the UFCW. I told him I'd take care of it, and we'd settle up later. He was quite distressed to later find out he owed me $200. That was a lot of money in 1983.
I ran into Tim and Tris several years ago. He insisted they take Carol and I for dinner in Seattle. He asked me to pick the place. General hilarity ensued. I thought better of suggesting the Union Grill, and instead suggested Seraphina, which is very nice but not $100 a plate.
Prom night? No thanks. It was lunacy then and it's gotten steadily worse.
These days, prom includes dinner. At least, it does at their school, and if I remember correctly, so did mine. But yes, you should've clarified with Tim what spendy meant. But I suppose if you had, you wouldn't have a great story these days, so it works out.
They did at our prom as well. But we considered ourselves deserving of something better than rubbery chicken provided by the venue (in our case, it was the Longacres horse racetrack), provided we were willing to sacrifice the money. We were young, and we thought we had something to prove.
And that's not, in itself, a bad thing, y'know? You and I have different political views, but I know you're not the kind of guy that's going to tell your kids they have to accept only what's handed to them in the name of DEI. DEI is a baseline, a starting point, not a boundary.
We weren't rich kids in 1983. We were small-town kids with delusions of grandeur, but our parents allowed us to set our own expectations and pay the price for them if that's what we were willing to do. And we did. Our parents didn't cheerfully or obligatorily hand us several hundred dollars to indulge youthful fantasies, they let us set our own expectations and live with the consequences.
I didn't fully appreciate the ramifications until I had sons that were seniors in high school. By that time, while I still wasn't (and am not) "rich," my wife had to put me under strict orders, on pain of sexual deprivation, that I was NOT going to finance my sons' youthful indiscretions. I was NOT allowed to hand my sons $500 and tell them, "knock yourselves out," despite the fact I could easily afford it.
I don't know what wisdom is anymore. I never had daughters. Prom Night DOES have significant ramifications, and my perception is that it has far higher ramifications for daughters than for sons. Those of you who have daughters won't benefit from lectures by those of us who don't. I have nieces, whom I adore, and every one of them is quirky, but I expect that any boy who wants to spend time with them better respect the hell out of them and consider himself lucky if they only cost him a week's earnings. By the same token, I expect of my nieces that they not look down on rubbery chicken paid for by young men who aren't going to compromise their future by paying a bill at the Union Grill, just to impress them.
