It’s fun to stay at the — UH OH!

This past weekend, I was so excited to be able to drive home for my sister’s prom. Not that I actually went to prom or anything, but just the fact that I could drive there and actually be there to see her take pictures with her date and talk about the dance afterward was exciting enough. I love living closer to home!

The day was not without a little bit of drama, though. (What high school prom isn’t?)

Janel put on her prom dress about 30 minutes before her date, her friends and their parents came over to take pictures. Unfortunately, the dress did not fit perfectly. In particular, since there were no straps, the dress would not stay up. Any quick motion of the arms, any bouncing around, any anything that didn’t involve her holding her dress up would make it fall down.

So, around 5:00 pm on Saturday, my mom, Janel’s friend Chelsea and I were circled around Janel, trying to figure out how to make her dress, er, stay on.

“Let’s try to pin the seams so it’s a little tighter,” I suggested.

Janel agreed. My mom went to her room to retrieve a bag of safety pins. It seemed like a good idea, but all we could find were small pins, none of which were strong enough to hold the bunches of material that needed to be gathered.

“Can we tape it?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“How do they do it in pageants?”

“Double stick tape?”

“Maybe you should just wear the straps, Janel,” my mom said.

“Wait! There are straps?” I said.

“I don’t want to wear the straps!” Janel exclaimed. “I told you I want a strapless dress!” She lifted up her arms. The dress fell around her waist.

“I give up. I don’t think there’s a way this is going to stay up without straps,” I conceded.

“Will you be comfortable?” my mom asked.

“Yeah. I just won’t lift my arms up,” said Janel.

“You should bring the straps with you in your purse, just in case you change your mind,” my mom said, reaching for the clutch.

“Ugh. Fine,” Janel stomped, her dress sagging low.

“Just make sure you don’t do the YMCA!” I joked. Everyone laughed hysterically, naturally.

Janel and Chelsea finished getting ready, their friends and their dates arrived with their parents, they posed for an invigorating round of pictures, and finally, they were off to the dance.

Later that night, just after midnight, Janel returned home to change out of her dress and into a more comfortable outfit to go to After Prom at the high school. When I heard her come in the front door, I got out of bed to meet her and see how the dance was.

“I’m a princess!” she exclaimed when she saw me.

“What?” I asked, in a daze.

“I’m the Prom Princess! I was crowned the princess of the junior class!”

I got the details on how they crowned her, who the prince was, and who the king and queen were.

“But, you’ll never guess what happened,” she smirked. “After they announced us and crowned us, they made us go to the dance floor and dance in front of everyone together. When we got down there, the announcer said, ‘Well, we know that you have boyfriends and girlfriends, and we don’t want them to get mad watching you dancing together, so let’s see what you can do to this song!’ and guess what the song was?”

“What?” I asked.

“The YMCA!”