did you hear the one about...

I always stroll down Memory Lane on prom weekend

   Kids at the local high school  have  prom this Saturday.  I love looking at all the people dressed to the nines in pictures their proud parents post on Facebook.  (Notice the clever use of alliteration?)
   I, too, went to prom.
   And I may have told this story.  If so, it will be different.  Stories are always different the second or third time.  I learned that from my friend the fireman.
   I may have been socially awkward in high school.  (Ok, I still am.)
   I asked a girl to prom, but she had already accepted another date.  She told me she wished I had asked her earlier.
   So I asked a girl, we'll call Diane.  (Actually, that was her name.)
   She was a senior and also a little socially awkward.
   I didn't drive.  Didn't have a license.  Didn't have a car.
   But a double date was out of the question, because the more the merrier.   So we quadruple dated!  One of the guys rented a station wagon and the eight of us crammed into it and went to the Edgewater Beach Hotel......or maybe not, John will correct me.  Now that I think about it, it might have been a downtown Chicago hotel.
   When we got there it was like a clown car at the circus!  People kept getting out and getting out and getting out.  I think our classmates came out of the dance to stare at us.
   I am not a good dancer, but I try.  Diane was not a dancer.  She didn't talk much either.
   She was close to my height, but she had her hair "done up" and the top of her hair towered above me.  I swear to god, there were eagles nesting in it!
   We got our pictures taken together.  There I am, a skinny (yes, Beth...skinny) geeky looking guy with spots all over his face and this Amazonian woman with a satiny blue dress towering above me.
   I always meant to give her some of the pictures after they were sent to me.
   But to be honest, I had such a horrible experience, I kept them for spite.
   It may have been our fifth reunion, I don't remember.  Jackie went.  And I took the pictures to give to Diane, thinking it would be funny.
   She was there with her husband, who proceeded to drink a lot.  I kind of remember him as bragging about how smart or rich he was, but maybe that isn't accurate.  Anyway, she nagged him, he drank, she nagged, he drank and I held onto the pictures.
   The last I saw of her....I believe she was headed into the woman's rest room.  That was where her husband had wandered into, much to Jackie's amusement.
   But if prom was bad, the day after was even worse.
   That's another story, probably one you have heard before.