eighty two

It happened in a phone conversation.

"Dad, can I go to prom?"

"I don't see why not," he said, and that was it. I bought my ticket, and now Em and I look at dresses online and talk about how kick-butt we'll be.

I guess it's not that big of a deal, an ordinary high school rite-of-passage that mostly everyone won't miss out on. I guess there will be crappy music and crappy food. But I just like dressing up and going places.

And I guess I thought that my mom would be helping me dress-shop. We would have a budget and Dillard's would be the first stop, but we wouldn't buy anything there, because it's too mainstream. It might have taken a while with her being ultra-opinionated, but in the end we would find that perfect dress. It would be like love, how everyone says you just know when you've found the one.

But now I go over to Em's couch and gawk over chiffon, or shop in stores with Emalie dragging me away to remind me of the Sonic I bribed her with.

All of a sudden it's not as exciting as I imagined.