For my first prom, my boyfriend, Eric, bought white roses that he put in the freezer to keep fresh while he went out with an over-21 friend to buy booze. When he showed up at my parents’ house – late – and presented me with the corsage, the flowers were all tinged brown with freezer burn.
Things went downhill from there.
We went to pre-prom, dinner, prom, post-prom, post-post-prom and then breakfast, with him in a bargain tuxedo with plastic shoes and me wearing – eeek! – hair spray and flowers that by midnight looked like they’d come straight from a compost heap.
The guys at the prom for the most part refused to dance, so the girls boogied with each other while the boys sneaked beers and cigarettes outside. The dates were stiffs, the music was terrible, and the parties were boring, but at least they lasted all night.
It wasn’t until my own kids were in high school that I fully understood why my father greeted me at the door so joyfully at 5 the next morning.
So in the rich tradition of rational adults everywhere, I hate proms. And every time another young person dies on prom night, I hate them even more.
Not that conscientious parents haven’t tried mightily to improve the odds.
In Colorado and across the country, parents sponsor post-prom parties designed to keep the kids sober, amused and off the roads until sunrise.
It’s no small feat.
Cherry Creek High School parents have been throwing after-prom parties for 25 years and still the planning, fundraising and execution is months in the making.
“We have about 500 parents involved,” said Renee Vejvoda, chair of this year’s gala. They raise money, install elaborate decorations at the school, contract with entertainers and food providers, gather door prizes and chaperone the event until dawn on May 21.
About 1,500 kids attend each year, many of them skipping the rest of the prom tradition entirely and choosing only to go to the free after-prom party. This year it will feature a casino, inflatable obstacle course, videotaped karaoke, game-show competitions, photo booths and other attractions.
“It’s a pretty spectacular event,” Vejvoda said. “The whole objective is to keep the kids in a safe, drug-free, supervised environment.”
But like everything else about prom, it doesn’t come cheap. A typical after-prom party at a Colorado high school often costs the parent committees up to $20 per student – which in some cases means more than $20,000 has to be raised.
Still, plenty of other parents sabotage their best efforts by renting rooms at the Brown Palace or other hotels so their kids can throw private parties.
Proms, with the clothes, the limos, flowers, photographers, dinners, fake tans, teeth-whitening, pedicures, jewelry and endless parties already can run a couple of kids (or more likely their parents) well over $1,000.
They need room service too?
“That’s past absurd. It’s obscene,” said John Armon, assistant principal at Arvada High School, who was at the after-prom party until 4 a.m. Sunday.
“There are huge, huge excesses with prom and they know no ethnic, gender or socio-economic boundaries,” he said. “The clothes, the decorations, the bling. We have a whole culture that glamorizes the extravagant.”
More than anything, prom puts the lie to the notion that the country is experiencing a resurgence of conservative values.
To the contrary, when Brother Kenneth Hoagland, principal of Kellenberg Memorial High School in New York, canceled prom last year, distraught parents responded by renting houses in the Hamptons for a substitute. How dare he diss the prom, they said.
Hoagland was unapologetic. He said the problem with prom is not just the sex, booze and the drugs, it’s the bacchanalian decadence.
My dad would’ve loved the guy.
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-820-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
