As we arrived in our mutual classmate’s mom’s station wagon, it began to dawn on me, “OH MY GOD, I may finally get to make out tonight!” I couldn’t believe my luck as I had gone from awkward, chunky kid best known for laughing like Elmo, to going to prom with the biggest crush of my life. Of course, not all was rainbows and unicorns. The mom kept us outside in the blistering June heat taking pictures to commemorate the event. Any swagger I was feeling about being at prom was slowly melting away into my Dad’s outsized suit. As we finally entered the depressingly sparse dance hall where prom was being held, it was time to party.
Suffice it to say, prom wasn’t as large a success as I had planned. Prior to prom, I kept thinking back to the many nights I spent watching scrambled porn on our fake cable box. I never really knew what I was looking at (was that a boob or a shoulder? Or in the worst case - “God I hope that body is not a dude, that would be really weird for me…”) but I had an idea of what consenting couples should be doing and sounding like while doing it. For some reason I thought I was heading to an evening of Yadia and I treating eachother's bodies like prepubescent amusement parks.
Prom started and Yadia and I stood next to each other awkwardly, like baby lion cubs going out to hunt but not exactly sure the process or why. Finally the song of the year came on, K-C & JoJo’s classic “All my Life” – which let’s be real is one of the most awkward songs in the history of mankind, it’s about one of the singer’s daughters and has lyrics such as “said I promise to never fall in love with a stranger, you’re all I’m thinking of”, WEIRD – and we figured this was about as good as time as ever to start getting our bogey on. And so we started dancing, meaning we started moving in a halted rhythm within the general vicinity of each other and then...well then we never danced again. Yadia ended up running to her friends when they arrived while I stood in the middle of the dance floor searching developing an exit strategy. Fortunately, one of my classmates Randy had somehow smuggled in a small portable TV with which we spent the rest of prom hiding in a corner watching game 5 of the 1998 NBA finals between the Chicago Bulls and Utah Jazz. I know, I know, I was SUCH a pimp.
Prom ended and I hadn’t spoken to Yadia after our initial dance. In my one futile attempt to get close to her, I was thwarted by Janie. This isn’t to say Janie stopped me on purpose; just she was of the body type which prevented me from getting around her. Unintentionally, she became an offensive lineman for Yadia, blocking out any outsiders such as myself. And that was it. Prom ended and then we had graduation. Now I’m not sure why – maybe she felt bad about the non-fulfillment of my own imaginary prom date pleasures – but Yadia invited me to come hang at her house, located a couple blocks from mine, during the summer. I of course obliged and so began the summer of 1998.
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