I didn't go to my high school prom. Neither did my high school best friend, Kate. We both sort of boycotted it, but truthfully, we just didn't see the point, but we didn't know that this was not easy. So here starts a tale to weird to live, to rare to die.
The first version of this piece was written in 1995 or so. Since then, I have gone to my 20th reunion, gotten letters from other high school kids grateful they found this, and I have grown a little. Much of it is re-written from that point of view, but the feelings towards this still stand: I have no regrets.
Let's frame where I was at this time. It was 1986 in a small upper middle class suburban town a miles away from the CIA headquarters. McLean High School in 1986 was not exactly a typical high school. The spirit of the "me decade" was a very prevalent theme, Reaganomics was considered a viable economic platform, and even though at the time I thought I was not part of this "me" phenomena, looking back, I think I was. I may have been different than everyone else, but I, too, was obsessed with my own importance in the scheme of things, even if I didn't care for anyone else's opinions. I was recovering from depression, I had an abusive father and an alcoholic mother, and most of my life since 8, I kind of took care of myself. I looked at school as kind of a break from my home life, so my motivation to get good grades and stay in school was so I had somewhere to escape during the day. I can't speak for anyone else in this matter, but I think this attitude shaped me as a person back then. It was like my home was staffed by crazy roommates, but I couldn't afford a better place to live.
But I also had one other place to escape: my best friend's house.
Being best friends with a girl was a rarity, but she had a very similar view of the world, having been the last offspring of the fourth husband her mother married. All her half-siblings were grown, married, and some even had kids. I am not sure if she was an accident or not, but there she was, like some kind of epilogue in her mother's dynasty. Her parents also drank, but as far as I know, only got tipsy, and to me they were always kind. Her mother was under some kind of illusion I was their daughter's mental pacifier since Kate apparently had anger issues until she met me, and I let off some steam. We'd sit in her basement, watch MTV, or sometime cartoons with her young nephew, TJ. We were a sarcastic pair, and Kate shared in this dance with unpopular reactions towards pomp and circumstance. This was hard to do in a High School that was so over-focused on its own image, even far more than the students ever were.
McLean high school had a lot of famous people's kids who, for some reason or another, preferred public school over private school (although my neighborhood had plenty of those as well). I graduated with Mary Cheney, the famous daughter of future vice president (then senator) Dick Cheney, and Jen Dingell of Senator Dingell. There were other kids who were the children of lobbyists, lawyers, senators, representatives, ambassadors, and higher ups in the US and foreign governments. Secret service were around, but you rarely ever saw them. And when you did, like the oddball "parents without children" at a kid's birthday party, it was rude to ask what they were doing there. In fact, it was rude to ask what anyone did for a living. Because it could start a fight, or expose the presence of someone who should be elsewhere. So the high school, either on their own, or pressure from parents too rather extreme measures. They expelled pregnant people, and either feared or didn't understand individuality more than many high schools even today.
There were a lot of kids who were "expected" to be a certain way. I never recall anyone being happy or full of school spirit, generally because less 40% of our freshman class were still around to graduate in their senior year; their parents had moved on. I think less than 15% of my kindergarten class were still around by high school. So graduating from McLean has as much emotional attachment as crossing 100,000 miles in an odometer when you're a trucker: minor reason to celebrate and where it happened didn't matter. Ultimately none of it mattered in the long run because it was just a number. "Class of 1987 of McLean, dad was working for the Saudis as an OPEC lobbyist, and moved back to Texas when he got a job with BP a few years later." Many had stay-at-home moms who were more of a rarity than even a decade ago, what with higher standards of living, inflation, and the women's movement.
I never had a girlfriend, in the colloquial sense, in high school. Not that I wasn't attracted to them, because we had some hotties, but having a girlfriend seemed complicated given that I could never take them home to meet my parents. On top of trying to keep my life and mental state in some semblance of order, taking care of a girlfriend seemed like an unnecessary burden. What I didn't realize at the time, was that it should go both ways: a girlfriend takes care of you while you take care of her. So I had a best friend who was also not into the dating scene. And we were a perfect pair from our sophomore year until we graduated.
Kate was a sharp cookie. She was highly intelligent with a rapier wit and a sarcastic bite that would best even the Daria standards set in the late 1990s. In fact, when I watched Daria back in the 90s, I thought about how Kate and I were back then a lot. I would have never survived high school without her. She was my sounding board, pal, partner in crime, and in many cases, smacked me around a little when I got too self-absorbed.
Kate was one of those kids who spent half her youth overseas. In her case, she was in Germany as a wee tyke, then Thailand for a few years, and even Japan before she moved back to the US when she was about 11. She had the typical demeanor like the "state department brats" or "military brats" (more of an endearing term than a negative slant) I knew growing up. Too American to cut it as a foreigner, too foreign to cut it as an American. Unlike those who grew up in the United States, you knew the US isn't the only thing around. You have seen better or seen worse. In Kate's case, much worse. She witnessed a murder on her front lawn in Bangkok, and was almost raped in Japan. Unlike a lot of the overseas brats, she didn't have a liking for any culture she was exposed to, and the US was no different. Kate felt VERY out of place, and was always out of step with her peers. She was short with a slight limp, she had a face that was accented by wild and semi-curly hair, and bottle-thick glasses. People who looked like her in horror movies often have a loud and angry chorus playing in the background. She spooked a lot of people, an image she embraced and used as much as she could.
I know more of our peers thought we were banging like two hot, freaky aliens behind closed doors. "Who would hang around our version of Carrie?" I heard the rumors. They ranged from her sexual preferences to her supposed violent exploits, with a lot of occult stuff thrown in. Kate was more into encouraging this Addams Family image than I was, and this was really before the goth movement took hold in the DC area. She wore the spikes, I just hung around back where I couldn't get stung. I liked her company because she was funny, witty, and non-mainstream. We had no romantic attraction, which was a relief for the both of us, as we saw mainstream sex obsession as just another example of how easily manipulated the bourgeoisie were.
We were like goth hipsters, I am afraid to admit.
I met her as a freshman when another friend needed me to mediate an argument between her and Kate. This mediation ended up as a tenuous apology at best, but I began to know Kate, and when we found we both had a healthy interest in the Science Fiction community later that year, we became friends. Both of us experienced each other's growth from pre-teen to pre-adult in all its horrifying glory.
The biggest joke to us was when our principal changed. We used to have this goofy guy named Mr. Price who was like our version of Ed Koch. He'd wander the halls, shake people's hands, and ask, "How am I doing?" He must have been doing well, because he got promoted to district supervisor. He was replaced by this woman who, rumor has it, was hired because her husband was a huge political mover in local defense contracting circles. Her name was Ms. Elizabeth Lodal, and she was a piece of work, let me tell you. She was like a ditzy version of Mrs. Umbridge. Complete with sensible polyester pants suit, she was probably in her early 40s and had a kind of blank expression on her face like she had a mild head injury. Her former credits were she was a kindergarten teacher, and her approach towards the students reflected this in its sappy, emotional glory.
This was not just Kate and I who felt this way. Most of the teachers hated her right off the bat. Students rolled their eyes at her inane ideals of happy-wappy student spirit in a school full of apathetic rich kids. She just could not connect at our level.
Which leads us to the heart of this story: how that woman decided to fund the Prom. Imagine a disgusting glistening log about a foot long and five inches thick, dark brown in color, and covered with walnuts and pecans. A description that another kid made was, "a giant turd covered in nuts." This was so apt a description, I wish I had thought of it. Thank God these things were encased in shrink-wrap or any decent citizen would have called the health department. A golden label adorned one side, showing its contents that read less like food ingredients, but more like a chemistry book with words that had dozens of syllables, and some that sounded like radioactive isotopes like, "Polysorbate 80" (and please don't send me e-mail on this, I know Polysorbate 80 is not an isotope and it is something like a glucose product, but it sounds a lot like one, like say Strontium 90 or Uranium 238, doesn't it?). The goal was set to sell ten of these nauseating things per student to help finance the senior prom. You were supposed to pick them up, sell them at $35 a pop, and bring back the money within the month. Quickly, our little neighborhood was swarmed with people begging door to door to have pity upon their souls to exchange these frozen bowel movements for cash or check. Quickly, even the most sympathetic old lady, who always bought candy for the band, began to hide behind her closed door, lights out, pretending not to be home. What ended up happening was parents bought the logs themselves and tossed them (or gave them as gifts to relatives they didn't particularly care for). One of my friend's parents said, "They might as well have just said, ‘Pay up $350 or your kid doesn't go!'" Now, as parent myself, I have had to deal with similar situations with school photos, gift-wrappings, and supermarket receipts.
But you weren't even buying this for your prom per se, but the current senior prom. So juniors raised money for the seniors. In a transitory town, this was a PR disaster. "My daughter has to pay $350 for a prom she may not even attend next year? I don't even know if we'll be here for her to finish her junior year; I'm getting orders to go to Guam but they won't tell me when!"
Kate and I had already resolved by the end of our Junior Year that we were not going to our Senior Prom. It wasn't so much the school, but our feelings towards pomp and circumstance without substance. I had many senior friends who graduated that year, and most of them said the prom was a disappointment and a waste of money. But we received more opposition to this than we would have imagined. And shelling our $350 for peanut logs with no responsible way to dispose of them into the environment was just beyond reproach. So we did a huge "whatever" and never picked them up.
Unbeknown to us, someone kept a list. I am not sure who had this list, but it went to our guidance counselors. This list showed who had paid for their logs, and who had not. Since at first there were a lot of no-shows, they made it a "law," so to speak, and said if you didn't sell them, no prom for you next year, and this is why they had a list. "OOOOOOHHH!!!" that would show us. We didn't even bother to find out hopw to get the logs, but later we found out you actually had to show up to some room, sign out your logs, and sign back in your $350 when you got it. In late Spring, we received pink slips to show up to our respective counselors.
My counselor was a cool guy, who knew about my problematic family life, and rarely gave me hassles. I think he was just glad I never skipped class and cared enough to get a passing grade. His speech was pre-fabricated, and carried with a tone that he didn't care for hearing it either. "You should take these and sell them," he said. "They help pay for your prom next year." I pointed out to him that they actually paid for this year's prom for the class ahead of me, and even those seniors had to pay an additional $75/head for tickets anyway. But it was all moot anyway, since I was not going to my prom. This last statement didn't shock him much, but I did get the speech I would hear from a lot of people for the next year: "Oh, but it's your PROM... you can't miss that!" Those voices were delivered with a little fear and warning, like "woe betide the fool who doesn't go to prom, the storms shall surely damage your vessel!"
That was as bad as I got it. Kate fared much worse. Her counselor actually called her parents. Kate's parents were a bit odd, but pretty fair, and her mother said, "If she doesn't want to, I am not forcing her." Kate, being female, received far more pressure than I did. My mother told me about her prom, and how nice it was, but knew my father certainly wouldn't allow $350 of his hard-earned money to go towards anything as ridiculous as this. Kate's parents had the, "I hope you know what you are doing..." talk but it only made her more determined. Finally, we were let off the peanut log harassment, citing we had "psychological differences" with the concept. Since both of us were seeing therapists once a week, this explanation was good enough for most people. Kate and I got smarmy comments from adults over the next year, hinting or outright stating that it was okay to go to the prom without dates, as if that was our problem. Uh, no. It seemed no one actually believed we just didn't buy into the whole concept but were somehow lazy.
Calendar pages flipped by. Our Senior year, winter melted to spring. Prom mania began to take hold, although only slightly so with the students. I think a lot of them went because it was something you were supposed to do. Then came the tickets. This will probably come as no surprise to my readers, but Kate and I did not buy any. This completely confounded everyone in charge of the tickets, and again our counselors were brought into the fray. I again got the, "You know, if you miss this, you will regret it the rest of your life," speech. I think everyone who left us alone before thought we'd somehow "get over it."
Again, Kate being a girl, got in much more trouble over the incident. Kate ranted for days about how people were treating her over this, and rightly so. She got a speech that it would end up in her permanent student record, and this "silly stubbornness" was a discredit to her and reflect on her college applications (although, by then, I had already been accepted to go to George Mason, and she had decided to do community college). They really wanted her to go the prom, "for her own good." Her counselor even came to ME and asked me to change her mind. Right. Yeah, I'll just flip a switch in the back of her head and change her mind. I had always respected Kate for her stout resolution, and I wasn't about to get in the way of it.
"You're not helping!"
Kat fought back, and since you can't really force someone to go to the prom and her parents tossed their hands up, they finally left her alone.
Truth be told, by this point, I had other problems. My mother committed suicide that January, and I was in a foster home situation for a while since my dad didn't want me in his life anymore. I was sent to a mental hospital for political reasons and sent back as "case unfounded." Technically, I was 18, and under my own recognizance, and needed to save whatever money I had for food, rent, and whatnot. I stayed in various guest rooms and couches, even crashed at Kate's house for a few months until her parents sickened of my presence. I barely graduated high school, and not because of my grades (AP and on honor roll), but my life outside of school was just a horrific mess. The prom was the least thing on my mind.
Other students were puzzled as to our actions. Some had heard about the peanut log incident, and some were completely blown away by what some called that ultimate "up yours" to our school. "Why don't you want to go?" I got asked. "I have no desire to go," I said, with a tone in my voice that it was all so beneath me. I didn't want to shell out $300 for a tux, pay who knows how many $$$ for the limousine (McLean people always showed up in Limos, it was the way things are done, don't you know...), and then the parties afterwards where people got drunk, screwed each other, and all for what? To prove that you were a semi-adult? I have been taking care of myself since I was 8, I didn't need a dance to validate that. I wanted no part of this prom crap.
As the date grew closer, I actually witnessed a few other students turning to my way of thinking. One memorable discussion I had involved a girl who said, "$300 for a tux? That's pocket change! My dress cost me $1200, you males get it off easily!" She was right, you know. But then I asked the simple question, "Then why are you going?" She sputtered for a moment, and then said, "It's the prom!"
The debate world has a legal term for this kind of circular reasoning: Petito principii – it is because it is.
Some student got mad, like "you think you are better than this? You think you're going to start a rebellion?" Uh, no. Look, I just don't want to go. But people were already starting to realize I was some kind of wolf that distanced himself from the pack, and instead of what they used to do and ostracize me, I think a few of them were getting senior jitters and looking up to me.
"He has his own job, he's living on his own, and he faked his own death."
Let's step back a little, as that last bit deserves a little background. After my mother committed suicide, I found a stable place to live, I came back to school after a two-month absence. Due to some vicious rumors (remember the political thing with the mental hospital? Whole sub-chapter there), many fellow students thought I was dead. Let me tell you, if you want to spook the hell out of people, let them think you are dead, get them past acceptance, and then return suddenly like nothing had happened. Kate knew I wasn't dead, but she wasn't going to just blab to anyone about what happened, and she didn't speak to many people anyway. The important people (my friends) knew I was not dead. I reappeared a month before the prom, and after people got over my exaggerated absence, many thought it was the ultimate prank. "That was SO cool!" some people said. "What?" I asked. Some people actually thought a lot of events in my life were some carefully staged acts of demonstrative rebellion. I was becoming an underground hero without my knowledge. That, to me, was the ultimate joke. Here I was, just wanting to survive my horrible life, and people were respecting my mishaps as some brilliant political maneuver designed to humiliate and shock.
Sigh...
Then came the prom weekend. They had rented a swank hotel function room somewhere real glitzy, and I really have little idea what happened. Kate and I "went through with it" without even blinking because, well, we went to a science fiction convention instead called Disclave. While the prom was blaring its Huey Lewis goodness at rich kids in costumes that cost more than my college tuition, Kate and I went to a Dance at Disclave called, oddly enough, "The Anti-prom."
Ironic.
That dance was dedicated to those who either hated their high school prom or had missed it because their parents were stationed overseas or something. It was a formal costume dance, so Kate wore a costume someone had loaned her, I had a black monk's robe still from Halloween, and we went dancing. Okay, truthfully, we hung around and watched middle-aged white sci-fi geeks attempt to dance. We laughed not so much they they couldn't dance, because neither could we, but at least we didn't TRY so hard. We had a good time at Disclave, and celebrated this would be the last convention we would have as high school students.
I didn't know it at the time, but it would also be the last convention we spent together as friends.
After we got back home, we heard a few things here and there about the prom. The major consensus was that it was a minor disappointment, that some people got too drunk (notably a major player in the SADD program), and a few people lost their virginity. It really had no lasting impact on anyone that I know of.
You want to know something? I am very glad I did not go. And I am not saying that like sour grapes either. I didn't do a whole lot of smart things in my youth, but this one I am proud of. Not only did I make a personal statement that I stuck to (increasing my own self-respect and confidence), but I saved a ton of money, avoided some people I never wanted to be at a party with, and all-in-all felt a great pressure had been lifted. It's been almost 25 years since that prom, and I have never regretted it once.
Kate and I also tried not to go to our own graduation. That didn't go very far. Kate's parents would have none of that, despite rules that said Kate had to wear a white dress, something she abhorred. Kate's parents also urged me to go, since this would make Kate's likeliness to change her mind at the last second rather slim. It was at this time I realized just how much they tried to use me to get to her.
I wished we had missed Graduation. The damn thing was six hours, in record heat, during a 17-year Cicada swarm. So we were sweating in those robes while dark green bugs the size of my thumb flew about the place, sizzling in the stadium lights, and landing all over everyone. Actually, it wasn't six hours. It was supposed to be, but after about 3-4 hours of this, students began to rebel. Finally, some unknown person, like the shot that started the American Revolution, screamed, "It's over! We've graduated!" Some people started to get up to leave. Our principal tried to say, "No no... we still have a guest speaker... no no..." but then people GOT THE IDEA, and everyone, including people in the stands, began to get up and leave. We all tossed our hats in the air, and some unknown benefactor unplugged the PA system, so we couldn't hear the principal over the roar of the crowd. It was the only school unity I ever saw. We ended it ourselves. Go Highlanders!
After High School, Kate and I went our separate ways. High school trials and tribulations bound us together, but after high school I found a stable place to live with Bruce and Cheryl of FanTek, and she opted to stay home. My life was pretty much off the path of my fellow college bound students, and she still needed the support of her family. Our differences in where to go from here tore us apart, and in fall of that year, she opted not to cut off our friendship in a whirlwind of drama. I sometimes cringe at the memories of our last fights, but that's being a teenager for you.
Eventually, we lost touch. I lost out on college as a series of events forced me to keep being part of the workforce, but eventually, I recovered. Kate's story has a much, much darker path, but in respect to her, I won't go into it except to say she hit rock bottom at some point until she turned he life around and eventually got a PhD. Some 13 years later, we met over the Internet and sort of made up, but we still do not keep in contact as our lives have completely forked away like the ending of the movie "Ghost World." I feel bad thinking I got the better end of the deal. My memories of us, sitting in front of the TV, and gossiping about teachers and how awful the popular media of the time was, are cherished memories. Part of my heart still carries a little torch for her, but as I have gotten older, I have learned how much people change from high school. Some good, some bad. In our case, we're almost completely unrecognizable from where we used to be.
When I first wrote this essay in 1995, I was still in sales management, trying to get an "Internet job." I eventually succeeded. Since that time, this essay has spurred a lot of mail from high school students. Many of them thanked me for showing them, "the prom is not everything." And they are right.
It's not. You don't have to go to your prom. In the 25 some years since that day, I have met many who have also not gone to their prom, who also have no regrets. High school is such a tiny, tiny bubble that is not representative for the rest of the world.
One final note: In my Senior year, I was really ticked off at Ms. Lodal and I wrote a letter of complaint to the school board, citing many situations of incompetency, inadequacy, and issues questioning her motives. It was very professional, but written and sent off in an ugly moment, and I quickly forgot about it. In 1991, four years later, I got a call from the Superintendent of District III. Apparently that letter showed up in their files, and was being used in a case against Ms. Lodal and a group of parents. After I stopped laughing, I declined to show up at the hearing, citing I had gone on with my life and wanted no more to do with McLean or its politics. I wonder what happened? One of my friends who graduated in 1995 said that Ms. Local had a debacle at McLean where she hosted "Lodal-palooza," a self-named rock concert venue for the students that was not only poorly attended, but she couldn't scare up any bands, so she hired rock bands from around the area. "I think only 100 people were there," she told me. "I only went because my friend had a friend who was one of the band members, so I didn't have to pay the entry fee." My friend, who shall remain nameless, also dated Ms. Lodal's son Eric for a brief period, and said that Ms. Lodal would not leave her alone reporting on how well her son was doing afterwards. She was an amazing joke, hated by students at teachers alike, years after I left.
But what I do know is almost 20 years after I left her behind, she was asked to step down from her job as the principal of another high school after citing that Korean students were cheaters.