Prom is an inexpensive ordeal
– even for parents
In a lot of ways, going to the prom is a lot like it was when I
was in high school. The girl buys a fancy dress. The boy rents a
fancy tux. Possibly dinner is involved, and a corsage, and a
limousine ride, if someone has the money for such a thing.
But not having dealt with prom stuff for a few years, I was not
really prepared for getting my youngest child ready for it.
Prom is an inexpensive ordeal – even for parents
In a lot of ways, going to the prom is a lot like it was when I was in high school. The girl buys a fancy dress. The boy rents a fancy tux. Possibly dinner is involved, and a corsage, and a limousine ride, if someone has the money for such a thing.
But not having dealt with prom stuff for a few years, I was not really prepared for getting my youngest child ready for it.
First of all, we got lost on the way to the tux rental place.
But let me back up to the beginning. First of all, Hunter, my long-haired 17-year-old son, is not exactly what we would think of as traditional prom material. He is something of a computer/gaming/anime geek, who decided during freshman year he wasn’t interested in getting haircuts anymore.
He is often mistaken for a very tall girl by people approaching him from the back.
Even so, and despite many gentle nudges from me in the past few years, he is not inclined to cut his hair. Not even for the prom.
However, despite all this, he has a girlfriend who seems to like him just the way he is. And so they are going to the prom together.
So, as all high school parents out there know full well, prom is an expensive proposition. For the boy, there is the ticket purchase and tux rental. Transportation is negotiable but necessary. Some couples may go to dinner before or after the event. A corsage is a nice touch, too.
For girls, there’s the dress, the makeup, the hair, and whatever else they need to do to themselves.
And let’s face it, by the time it’s all said and done, you’re talking $300 or more for the guy, especially if he buys his date’s ticket (which is the gentlemanly thing to do). So I am helping my son with the expense.
Of course, senior year is littered with a variety of expenditures, ranging from the prom to buying the 2011 graduation tassel. Prom is the final insult to the wallet.
At any rate, we went off to find the tux rental place at Northridge Mall in Salinas. After consulting the mall directory, Hunter and I went to what we thought was the right place, but it was just a closed-up space with no name.
I knew there had to be a tux place there somewhere, but of course there was no one at the information desk. But I did find a phone number and called.
Sure enough, the store had moved and no one had bothered to post a sign saying where it had gone.
So that was the first hurdle to be dealt with. But then, when we did finally find the darn store, there were more.
Namely, my son having no clue about what he wanted to wear.
“Which one do you like?” I asked him, gesturing to the tuxes displayed on one of the walls.
“I dunno,” he said. “Which one do you like?”
Sighing, I proceeded to pick out all his clothes for him, which I used to do when he was under the age of 6.
I don’t even want to tell you how much the tux rental ended up being, but enough to make my eyeballs roll back a bit. The cost of living continues to rise, doesn’t it? And so does the cost of prom.
And now he needs a corsage for the girlfriend.
I can hear him now: “Mom, I don’t know what to get. Which one do you like?”
