We're not permitted to look at the
dresses until we're assigned a consultant, someone who
inquires with eyebrows raised about color and size and price, of
course. "Ask my daughter," I say, pointing. "I don't
pay for prom."
Technically that's incorrect: My
husband and I kick in a hundred bucks towards the occasion. But
between up-dos and nails; shoes and makeup; flowers and a limo;
tickets and alterations for a made-in-China gown
costing between two- and twelve hundred dollars, our contribution is
laughable.
We
select an armload of dresses and are directed to the bank of rooms at
the back of the store. Our consultant misspells my daughter's name on
a pink sticky note in the shape of a heart and affixes it to her
dressing room door.
To my left, a little girl in a white
Communion dress examines herself in a three-way mirror. She smiles,
revealing two missing front teeth, as her mother puts a veil on her
head.
A toddler toddles by in a pair of high
heels.
A woman hands her mother a teal gown
through the dressing room door. She looks at my eldest. "Are you
here for your wedding or your prom?"
"My sister's prom."
"Just wait," the woman sighs
deeply. "Prom's a piece of cake compared to planning a wedding."
Up three stairs, on a raised platform
in the center of the store, are three dressing rooms. On the opposite
side of the wall, three more. This space is reserved for the
brides-to-be. They try on gown after gown, emerging from the dressing
room to ooohs and aaahs and the teary-eyed smiles of their sisters and
mothers and friends.
A great handbell is rung. A cheer goes
up. A bridal gown has been chosen.
My daughter tries on countless dresses.
This one is too low; that one cut too high. The color is off. The
price is too steep. Another has cutouts that expose hipbones and
sides, designed to, according to one store: allow
you flaunt it if you’ve got it.
A
dizzying two hours later, we emerge, empty-handed and frazzled.
* * *
I see that my daffodils are emerging
from the warming soil. No one rings a handbell. There are no great
shrieks of joy; no wild clapping to usher them in. They easily go
unnoticed.
That's OK.
My daffodils don't lord it over the
crocuses and the hyacinths. They merely stand, silent and still,
arriving without fanfare, doing their their work in quiet majesty,
announcing spring.
Any idea what the average person spent on prom last year?
Kelly Garriott Waite on Google+
http://www.goldenasp.com/shop/dresses/style/cutout-prom-dresses
Labels: Consumerism, Consumption, Creative non-fiction, prom, Raising Children