Suburban Cinderellas

Turnabout may indeed be fair play, but up here in deep dark middle class suburbia, it's just a royal pain in the ass. I speak, of course, of the annual spring dance at the high school which is preceded by months of anxiety among girls who must do the asking. Fair enough in that sense, I suppose, but the positives end there.

As is the case with the more traditional homecoming dance in the fall, the girls and their parents spend innumerable hours and dollars preparing for the event they won't attend for more than an hour, if at all. The boys just shower and show up. At some kind soul's house for pictures before the dance, the girls hobble around on ridiculously high heels, afraid to turn their heads on the off chance a hair might get misplaced, and the boys stuff themselves with food, caring not one bit about staining their outfits or busting already strained zippers.

My conscientious objections notwithstanding, I participated willingly in all the nonsense; whatever disappointments or letdowns my daughter suffers on the Sunday after, they won't be because of anything I did, or didn't do. (She'll take it all out on me, but that's just a fact of life.) On the day of the dance, from eleven in the morning until four in the afternoon, I drove her around from appointment to appointment and sat with her while she morphed from cute kid in sweats to beauty queen in sweats. She put on her dress and nightmarish shoes, I showered so as not to offend the other parents at pictures, and off we went for an hour of squealing and forced smiles and nervous giggles and popping flashes. At least I had a proud parenting moment; my daughter was the only girl whose dress hem was closer to her knees than her belly button.

Well, off they went to the dance, for about an hour. I raced over when I received the text summoning me a bit earlier than scheduled, and took my daughter, her date, and another couple to the next venue, where they would spend an hour and a half running around in athletic attire. So much for the nails, hair, and makeup, and good riddance to strained zippers and treacherous shoes.

I thought about going into a popular restaurant nearby to have a diet coke at the bar while I awaited pickup time, but when I arrived in the parking lot and saw all the deep dark suburbanites coming in and going out and looking dressed for a civilized adult evening out, I lost my nerve. So I drove back to wait for the kids, and took a snooze in the parking lot. I thought I was dreaming when the girls approached the car. They emerged looking far less terrifying than they had appeared at pictures.

Sunday morning, I picked up four of the girls from the no doubt sleepless sleepover and drove them to a reunion breakfast with the boys. I am not one of the moms who received a desperate midnight text requesting immediate pickup, so I already felt as if the weekend had been a success. The girls were quiet and morose during the entire car ride, saving any pleasantness they had left for breakfast with the boys. Fair enough.