Prom as a 29-year-old, Part 2

 

See my previous post for a more detailed description of my mind's eye memories of prom as a chaperone. Let me know if you want to read the down-and-dirty version of Prom madness on my Teaching Tumblr. :)

My students call me Miss G. My supervisor calls me Miss G. My colleagues call me just G. The kids who are being smartasses call me G-Money or G-Baby. This is a conversation with one of said smartasses.

My date and I were waiting at some tables outside—semi-chaperoning, mainly staying out of the blaring bass and crowds. A few students trickled through to say check out the scenery outside and ended up saying hello as well. 

(To be clear, my students know I’m single. I didn’t promise them I was attending the prom—in fact I mentioned that I probably wouldn’t go unless my guy went.)

One of my smartass boys—he is polite, but sarcastic as all hell (I call him Slim)—did the very suave head nod and commented, “Looking beautiful, Miss G. As expected!” and leaned in for a hug. He whispered in my ear, “I got this, Miss G.” and winked at me. 

My date stood up to shake Slim’s outstretched hand, when he introduced himself, “Hi, I’m Tyler. Ummmmm, Mr. G?” 

*                  *                *

So, yeah, Slim, “You got this.” I’m laughing and shaking my head…because let’s see, no matter how much feminism I’ve shoved down my kids’ throats, I still don’t think I’d ever be feminist enough to have my man take my last name, er, well, last initial.

Signing off...G-baby!

Prom as a 29-year-old, part 1

I mentioned on facebook that my most creative, unique, interesting girl had asked my smartest, most polite, genuine boy to the prom and how adorable of a couple I thought they’d make. (At least for prom. I don’t want any of them ACTUALLY dating until they’re like my age, helloh!)

Well, last weekend was the prom, dun dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnn.  It was a big to-do for the kids with a lot of absenteeism in order to be properly coiffed, manicured, and made-up. There were limos and hotel rooms rented and hundreds into the thousands of dollars spent on the weekend. It was eye-opening to me to see kids who cannot/will not spend $15 on an AP study guide spend so many bones on a mere few hours of “enchantment.” Academic hrrmph.

I’m not sure how many pictures I will post—I will check my camera and update this post—but I tend to keep my students off of my social media for privacy purposes. Trust me when I say that there were beautiful gowns and fancy tuxedos. The bead work, the chiffon, the tulle, the mile-high-heels were something to behold. There was a red carpet and everything for their entrance. 

A few moments: one of my very unique (talk about marching to her own drum) and old-soul students was more or less dressed as Marilyn Monroe. She had the classic halter dress (but it was in red) with the mini-pleats of the skirt and elbow-length white gloves on. She looked breathtaking. 

My super-genius-kid-I’d-hang-out-with-in-real-life boy student (who's obsessed with Soviet Russia, so he rolled my eyes when I introduced him as a Communist) attended prom with another smart friend and their outfits were tastefully coordinated—he in a seafoam team vest and tie with her in an aqua-colored gown. They seemed to move as a group of (nerdy) friends and thoroughly enjoy each other’s company. That was sweet to see.

The deliciously awkward couples? Ah yes, the ones who’d broken up this week or in the past few days, but still had coordinated dresses, tuxes, and corsages..the tension was palpable between some of them. Another awkward thing? Hipster skinny pants with tux jackets. Weird, dudes. It looks weird.

I have a funny one and a sweet story to mention—and I hope it doesn’t violate too much of my date’s privacy to mention this one—but I’ll go with it. My date wasn’t very excited about attending the prom, for, well, obvious reasons. When one doesn’t work with the 17-19 year-old set, who wants to spend a Friday evening with them? He was a good sport and agreed to go and snap any pictures I wanted with “my kids” and listen to all the ridiculous inside stories I had to say about any of my little monsters.

So my date was a little perplexed about what to wear, but I knew he had some dress clothes hanging in his closet—and he (as the kids would say) TURNED UP! in excellent fashion. He wore a beautiful burgundy/purple shirt (it complimented my red party dress!), tailored jacket, black slacks, and suspenders—but not really suspenders—they’re called braces. I’m not so up on my fancy-pants-men’s fashion words to know that—but when the suspenders don’t clip on, but in fact, attach to the loop inside the expensive dress pants—then, they’re called braces. 

I swear there’s a reason I’m saying all that.

So we had basically just arrived at the lobby of the hotel and made our way into the ballroom when the polite, genuine boy found me. He hugged me, complimented me-- told me I looked great and put his hand out to introduce himself to my date. My student is a very charismatic kid, yet he’s also very insightful, so he knew that I wasn’t sure if I was going to prom if my date hadn’t wanted to go.  He was wearing a pretty complicated rented tux to match his date’s black on white gown—so he had the white and black shoes, the stylish black shirt with the white bow tie and vest, and the black jacket with the white silk handkerchief in the pocket. He looked sharp! (And it was probably the fanciest thing he’s ever worn in his life.) It was very mature and very grown up of him to offer the handshake and name first--my date dutifully introduced himself—it was very mature and manly of both of them.

(Granted, my date is an adult who works in a professional field, so handshakes and polite introductions are the norm, for him. The sweet part was how mature and grown-up my little baby 17-year-old in fancy clothes was being. I expected nothing less.)

 

The music was so incredibly loud in the ballroom—so you couldn’t hear anyone unless you were shouting in their ear—and it was also pretty crowded. My student was about ready to walk off and go back to dancing, but then he paused. In this sweet moment of, I can’t even think of a descriptor, naivety, my student (who is a tall, handsome kid in a very fancy tux)—opened his tux jacket, shoved his vest to the side, and pointed at his suspender (brace, eh?) and then pointed to my date’s. It was such an “aww” moment of, “You’re my teacher’s date and I really respect her and want her to be impressed by me, and look, look, man, we have the same thing on!!”

·        Maybe you had to be there. But it was sweet.

·         

·        The other moment was less poignant and more comical—by a lot.

·           

Food Anthropology: Gangman style...Shamrock Shake

So, for those of you who live out of the American collective of fast food establishments...good for you. You're saving your money, your waistline, the environment (from all the superfluous shipping and packaging), etc. etc. I attempt to live a clean-whole-natural-organic lifestyle, but only about 85% of the time. I follow 100 Days of Real Food and I feel venerated in the fight towards label reading and food company transparency.  I love me some Coca-cola. That chilly, flavorful, sparkling HFCS is amazing. When my classes have parties (as I allow/encourage) about once a month, I pile a paper plate full of whatever preservative-laden-food-garbage they brought in: Little Debbies, Hostess cakes, Cheetos, Funions, cookies that probably could make it through the apocalypse-- you get where I'm going with this. My colon and rest of my organs appreciate all the salads and fresh fruit I eat, but some days, man-oh-man, a pile of cheese puffs with that magic orange cheese glitter being washed down by some orange Fanta-- it's the best. Thanks, 'Mrrica. You're doing it RIGHT!

In doing a little internet research (cough, cough Googlesearch), I found that there is a lot of McDonald's "art" with this marketed as a "limited-time only" milkshake. I get the allure of the seasonal products-- it makes you want something because you can't have it. 

Say Shamrock Shake. Now say it in the same voice as the Gangnam Style guy. Hah! Now you've got it stuck in your head too.

Scarcity used to be part of the human condition. For most of the world it still is. Ask any Anthropologist or Historian, and they will tell you that the search for water, game, and food was the majority of why civilizations were created-- to make the scarcity less scarce. To secure food protein-- to provide for future generations. 

The strange part of that is that fast food is, in its very nature, all about immediate, NOT delayed gratification!

So, when the business model of, say, Chickfila leaves us wanting chicken nuggets and special sauce for 24 hours when you can have access to them most other days from 6 am to 10 pm, why does it work? Wendy's sweet potato fries are seasonal, Chick-fil-a peppermint, banana pudding, and peach milkshakes are only around for a bit, and Dairy Queen promotes a certain blizzard (um, how many Pumpkin pie blizzards did we eat from that one in Decatur, Marcus?) during each month. Starbucks has their seasonal drinks and desserts (and pretty poster)-- I get pretty disappointed when I want a slice of that perfectly moist pumpkin loaf and I can only have lemon cake when I'm shopping at Target or Kroger or wherever else a Starbucks has popped up for my convenience. 

Why does this work? I think because it taps into our history as hunter-gatherers. Historically, we can only eat foods that are ripe, and certain foods are only ripe during certain times of the year. We used to only eat foods that were local to us or recently killed in that area (meat-wise). However, with economic demand, the ease of the vast network of global transportation (planes, trains, boats, trucks-- everything a toddler boy wants to have miniatures of in his mom's purse), and human ingenuity-- we can have virtually any food any time. 

This of course, has a massive cost on the Earth. Farmers produce more than the demand is so that unions get paid. Foods are picked unripe, shipped, and gassed to look ripe. Laborers are exploited all over the world. Why? So we can have that immediate gratification. But then there's the human condition of being let down. We want to feel close to the farmers, the land, the people who made our food. It goes against the massive food industry-- but we have these urges to  go with seasonal.

So what did clever marketing teams do? They created that vacuum. You can only have that Pumpkin Pie blizzard around Thanksgiving. (Cuz, duh. Pilgrims wanted low-fat icecream with candy stuck in it that would survive a trip in the cupholder sans lid!) You can only have the Coconut-lime-verbena-sugar-sanded-key-lime-pie-drizzled-frappucino-magic during summer time, because it reminds us of the island vacation we took one time. (Or never took because we're so busy working.) It put a price on our memories-- and allows us to feel like we are tapping into something bigger-- a time that we once had-- and a time when we once COULDN'T have everything we wanted with immediacy.

For those of you who do occasionally (or more frequently; I'm not judging) hit up a Mickey-Dee's drive-thru (or Chick-fil-A, or Wendy's, or Dairy Queen, or TacoHell), you know that late winter and early spring is the only time to get the magically minty Shamrock Shake.

I had NO idea that every time I read the "Shamrock Shake" advertising  (and it makes me hum "Gangnam Style" in the same rhythm...arrgh)...that it has a longer history than the less than 5-year-old McCafe. It is a St. Patrick's Day drink! They invented that Grimace (whatever he is anyway) has a green cousin who demands a different milkshake...and fortunately for you, dear consumer, he gets his way. I mean, he does have a Shilleleagh and a vest with Celtic knots. It seems legit. I don't remember any commercials, but I'd venture a guess that he has a Lucky (from Lucky Charms) Irish accent. 

See, he's real Irish. You can tell from the hat and the fact that he'll do RiverDance soon.

What is this? A styrofoam cup??

I mean, gosh. Who knew this thing had been around for so long? That cup in the bottom picture is still styrofoam! They got rid of those by the mid-90's when all those Tree-huggers got to the McDonald's buyers and made us replace our Styrofoam Big Mac boxes with flimsy waxed paper. 

Crazy!

So, to end this rant...with the idea that started it...I'd been teaching sonnets to my 12th graders. The assignment was to create the 14-line sonnet (the couplets didn't have to be exact) and each line had to have 10 syllables (it didn't have to be exact Iambic pentameter). 

The theme: Something You Love.

I got a delightful variety of subjects-- of course, the romantic love poems (they are 17, so love is very awesome), and the angry, bitter love poems (they are 17, so love is very awful). There were kids who took it a little less emotionally-- and wrote about literal things they love-- some of them poignant-- their love of education and accessing knowledge, their love of video games and the entertainment they bring, their love of certain-branded shoes and the designers who created fashion empires. And then there was the Shamrock Shake. 

The girl who authored it is hilarious and deep. She writes brilliant essays and hangs out with the artsy kids. I don't know if she makes visual art...but she sure can make some verbal art!

 

[And in case you want to know JUST HOW healthy these milkshakes are...here's a link to the official nutrition page. You're welcome. (In case you don't want to read it, there's like a million bazillion calories and stuff. Duh. That's why it tastes good.) ]

So yes. The Shamrock Shake. It has a funny poem now. And I had no idea that it was part of the McDonald's history of marketing and tapping into other cultures. I knew it made me want it...when I can't have it later in the year.