Hello Internet!
First thing I want to say is Thank You, Thank You, THANK YOU! This past week has been one of the busiest on the website and I owe it all to you, the viewers. We had a huge surge of viewers over the past week and a whole lot of new followers, so Hello to everyone no matter if you’re new or old. I appreciate you all the same. Honestly this week took me by surprise. First we close out April which was the biggest month to date in term of viewers, views, and likes in a month. This past month was the third month in a row where we smashed through the previous month’s goal so that was incredible. Then literally the next day, May 1st, I put out a Special Weekly Blog talking about the Five Books That Have Influenced Me and that blew up in popularity. It skyrocketed to being one of my most viewed and most liked Weekly Blogs and helped me reach a new best day in terms of total views on the website. All of that because of you so thank you for that! I really, really appreciate it! If you’re new here you probably don’t know that I show my gratitude a lot and every time I mean it, so seriously for making April a fantastic month and thank you for showing so much support for Tuesday’s special Weekly Blog. If you haven’t read it, I encourage you to check it out. I had a ton of fun writing it and it seems like people really liked it.
Ok really quick I should point out that there were other pieces published this week as well. On Sunday I published a Weekly Blog all about How I Hate Spoilers (Don’t worry, there are ZERO Infinity War Spoilers in it…not even small ones.) On Wednesday I published a Poem all about Sitting Around A Campfire and on Friday I published a new Writing Prompt piece all about An Unexpected Taxi Cab Ride. Again if you haven’t checked those out, I highly suggest you do. In my humble opinion, they are pretty great. Now let’s move on to what you really came here for: some Prom stories.
I thought that I would take a moment and look back at my experience of Prom because around this time there are a lot of Proms happening. This weekend and last weekend seemed to be the big weekends for Prom (at least where I live) so I thought it would be a good jumping off point for a walk down memory lane. Just to kick things off, I should tell you that my Prom experience was very different from what Hollywood Movies like to tell us is the “normal” Prom experience. My Prom wasn’t filled with alcohol and drugs in the bathroom or sex on the dance floor. I have heard stories from other people where those things did happen at their Prom, but as far I know, they didn’t happen at mine. Or if they did, they didn’t happen to me. Like there is a 99% chance someone showed up drunk to my Junior or Senior Prom, but I was a nerdy kid in High School who really took DARE’s message to heart. Just say no. I know this is going to be a quick tangent, but DARE led me to believe that people would go out of their way to offer me free drugs and then continue to provide me free drugs if I said yes or really peer pressure me into doing drugs if I said no. This was not the case for me. Even in College, if I was at a party and someone offered me alcohol and I said “I don’t drink,” they would be like, “Oh, Ok,” and then move on to whatever else they want to do. Even with Marijuana. If someone asked me if I wanted to smoke weed and I said no, they were totally chill and then just went on with their day. No peer pressure at all. Anyway, back to Prom. Again, my Prom was pretty boring compared to some Hollywood Movies or Television shows, but I really enjoyed Prom. I loved dressing up and going out with my friends where we could just dance and hang out and have a good time. It was pretty care free. I know for the girls of my friend group, Prom was a little bit more stressful and expensive due to them buying Prom dresses and getting their hair and make-up done, but for me it was all fun with very little stress.
I actually went to Prom twice, once my Sophomore year and once my Junior year. I did not attend my Senior year. Now I don’t know what it’s like for all High Schools and how this relates to people outside the United States, but for my school you could attend Homecoming (The Fall/Winter Dance) all four years of High School (Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior), but you could only attend Prom if you were a Junior or a Senior. Well the one exception to this rule was if your date fell into one of those categories. My Sophomore year of High School I was dating a girl at the time who was a year older than me. A Junior. So she went to Prom and took me along with her. I had a pretty great time. Lots of dancing, eating delicious food, and hanging out with my then girlfriend and her friend group. Tons of fun. The next year was my Junior Year and I went with another girl to Prom. She was actually a girl who attended a different school, but I knew her through Church. Anyway we went as friends and had a really fun time. It was held on a riverboat and I remember it was really rainy. So basically we crammed a bunch of people onto this small riverboat in the middle of a downpour and we just danced the night away. I had a blast. Unfortunately I don’t think my date had that much fun. I’m not sure about the exact circumstances, but after that she really didn’t talk to me at Church anymore and we stopped hanging out. It’s not like I put “the moves” on her or anything. We went as friends and I respected that. Plus I’m not smooth enough to put “the moves” on anyone. Like I’m using air quotes. That’s how un-smooth I am.
Anyway when my Senior Prom rolled around, my friend group wasn’t really feeling it. I wanted to go, but didn’t have a date so my plan was to go with my group of friends. Money was tight for a lot of them (including me) and they weren’t really feeling spending all that money to go to Prom. They figured that they could spend less money and just hang out together in our own little MORP. MORPs are usually super casual anti-Proms, but ours was just a group of friends hanging out together. We ended up going to A Mongollian Grill place and ate the most delicious food. Then we went to a Church where one of my friend’s Mom was the pastor. The Mom let us hang out there and watch movies. So that’s what we did. We watched movies, ate Popcorn and candy, and played Hide-and-Seek in the church. I think afterwards it was revealed that the Mom/Pastor thought we were just going to be there for a little bit, but we were there for several hours running around the church after dark and having fun. It was a really fun experience, but a little bit of me still wishes I could have convinced my friends to go to Prom. It’s just that even though I wasn’t a super popular kid in school, I still loved participating in school traditions and activities. Maybe it’s the Hollywood High School Movies bleeding into my brain, but I think High School is a special time and I wanted to take it all in. That being said, I’m not one of those people who want to go back to High School or think High School is the best time of your life. That’s definitely not true and it’s sad to me that people think they peaked at age 18. Anyway, I enjoyed my MORP and hanging out with friends and maybe Senior Prom would have been super lame, but I still think I would have enjoyed it.
Jumping back real quick to tell another Prom-related story. During our Junior Year, all Juniors had to collected three “Prom Points” in order to attend Prom. Basically it was a way to collect free labor from Juniors while also making them pay for Prom tickets on top of all the other Prom-related items needed. Let me explain further. All Juniors had to collect these points by working concession stand at the Boys Basketball Games. You signed up for three different dates where you could work the concession stand and sell pop, candy, soft pretzels, nachos, etc. Working one of these games gave you one point. Work three games and earn your way to Prom. For me it wasn’t too bad, but I remember one game was really rough. Me and one of my good friends were stuck making soft pretzels, hot dogs, nachos, and other hot food. Well we had just gotten a new school and the little concession area we were working out of had major electrical problems. We quickly found out that running the popcorn machine, the soft pretzel spinning machine, and the microwave to warm up hot dogs blew out the electrical circuit. We could only run one machine at a time. It was horrible. People would be trying to buy our warm food as we struggled to keep up. We microwaved hot dogs and then would warm up pretzels and then quickly switch to the popcorn machine. There might have been other machines too. I don’t remember. What I do know is that it was just us two, me and her, multi-tasking like crazy in order to keep our food supplies up for the waves of sports goers. Fun times. Looking back on it, it is a good memory and taught me a lot about time management, but during it was just a blur of stress for the entire night. I did end up earning my Prom Points and attending Prom on a boat, so I guess it all worked out in the end!
So that’s it. That’s my experience with Prom. I hope you enjoyed those Prom stories and weren’t too disappointed that none of them ended in drugs in the bathroom or teen pregnancy. Sorry I’m not a stereotype. Also I’m a guy so I guess I automatically overcame teen pregnancy when I was born. Oh well. I hope you enjoyed that Weekly Blog. If you did, please give it a like or leave a comment down below telling me about your Prom. Were you Prom King or Queen or were you more of a MORP type of person? Let me know down in the comments. Also if you haven’t read the other pieces I published this week, go ahead and check them out or spend some time on the website checking out the other stuff I’ve published. If you are new here or if this is the first time reading my stuff, I want to welcome you and thank you again. Also I want to let you know that you have a lot to catch up on. There’s over 1.5 years of writing here on the website and over 200 pieces to read, so you better start! Seriously if you are new here or just aren’t caught up on all the things I’ve published, I encourage you to spend some time browsing the website. I’m sure you can find something worth reading. Also you can check me out on Facebook and Twitter if you’re up to it. I don’t post a lot of stuff, but it will let you know when new stuff gets posted to the website.
Thank you again and I hope you have a wonderful week!
-Allen_The_Writer
Header Photo Credit to Gasimli Prom Night Logos
http://www.gasimli.info/prom-night-logo.html
Allen The Writer 