Saturday

There is an American custom that I think is stupid and wasteful, and that is the prom dance. It seems to me that at the end of a particular school term it is usual to hold a prom.

Like at the finishing middle school, finishing high school and finishing college. As the ages advance these events take on different approaches. Probably the most innocent one is at the end of middle school while the wildest one is at the end of college. High school is somewhere in the middle.

Today we were hunting for a prom dress for Abigail. I could not imagine anything more exasperating than finding a dress that everybody liked. The criteria was that it had to be a certain color, it needed to be fashionable, it could not look like an old lady type, it needed to be the right shape and it had to be twirlable. Twirlable is my definition for a dress that twirls the right way when its wearer dances.

We went to Macy's and looked and searched high and low. What we liked she did not like and reversibly what she liked we didn't think was nice enough. It got to the point when I just gave up and sat down and told them call me when it was time to pay.

But eventually we found a beautiful dress that everybody agreed upon. Now only time will tell if she will wear it because the prom is still far away, in June.

Now, why in the world 14 year olds need to have a dance? They don't have any idea what goes on in the world but they need a dance. When I was 14 year old my school didn't have any dances. School term was over we went home and that was it. And, we were happy.