Prom

The story I’ll be telling in this post has absolutely nothing to do with my senior prom, so don’t worry, this isn’t going to be that type of trip down memory lane. This is mostly for the fact that my memories of my senior prom are quite limited. I remember I went with a group of friends, one of which was my “date,” we all took an awesome trolley from Collinsville to the now defunct Millennium Hotel in beautiful downtown St. Louis where our prom was held. All that I just mentioned is standard issue stuff, the thing I remember most from my prom and I never miss an opportunity to share when discussing other people’s proms is that we had a massive screen on the wall behind the dancefloor where the music video for the song being played was projected onto. It was wonderful. Suffice it to say, Britney Spears “Toxic” never looked and sounded as good as it did being projected across that screen while thousands of kids danced to one of the universe’s most iconic songs. Sadly, I also remember that it was the ONLY Britney Spears jam played that night! It should also be noted that I don’t recall a single Céline Dion song ever being played, which means clearly none were. Collinsville High School should STILL be wallowing in shame for these heinous oversights!

Anyway, like I said, this isn’t about my prom, so let’s move forward. In fact, this post isn’t actually about anyone’s prom at all. It’s about my kind, thoughtful, and endearing attempt to try and help my dearest cousin Cortni secure a date to her senior prom.

One evening in early spring 2014, Melissa, Cortni, her brother and my cousin, Dylan, and I were all taking a walk around Wilson Park – the Disneyland of Illinois – and during the initial stages of this walk, Cortni was sharing stories about a certain boy from her class that she was sweet on when the conversation progressed to her upcoming senior prom.

“No one’s asked me yet,” Cortni shrugged with a slight laugh.

“Why don’t you ask that boy you just mentioned?” I said referencing her recent stories.

TIMEOUT! Let me interrupt myself here with a quick little story! Cortni, I will NEVER forget how you wanted that ten second clip from this boy’s Snapchat story of him dancing while out celebrating his birthday and the hilarious aftermath of you getting it. See, on this boy’s Facebook check-in at the restaurant he had his birthday dinner at that night, someone commented asking him what he had to eat, so he replied with a picture from his Snapchat story of the meal he had earlier that night. Well, in the image of his food, you could see that someone had taken a screenshot of what was literally nothing but his plate of food. That person was Cortni. She had inadvertently screenshot his food. She couldn’t just screen record the single ten second clip of him dancing that was tucked into the end of his Snapchat story, she had to record the entire story, which for him meant that it looked like Cortni took a screenshot of each individual image he had in his whole story. Cortni, that poor boy, he probably thought, why did Cortni take a screenshot of every picture in my story? Never once thinking that you had to screen record the whole thing to get that little video clip you actually wanted. If he didn’t know you were sweet on him before this, he certainly found out that night! Happy Birthday to him! I’m sorry everyone for this intrusion, but I thought it too good not to throw into the mix. Okay, back to the story…

“Whaaat!?! No way! I’m not going to ask him,” Cortni responded like she was appalled at the very notion of my suggestion, but laughing all the while she spoke her words.

The four of us continued walking the one and a half mile pathway around the exterior of the park with Melissa and I vigorously encouraging Cortni to summon up her courage to ask this boy. Cortni and Dylan kept laughing at all of our inspirational and foolproof ideas to get him to go to prom with her when off in the distance we could see that two boys about Cortni’s age were walking in our direction. Cortni abruptly changed the topic once she realized who they were and Melissa and I, seeing what was going on, patiently waited till we were out of those boys earshot to ask Cortni about what just happened.

“Nooothing…” Cortni responded with a nervous laugh.

Melissa and I looked at one another then back at Cortni. “Who were they?” We asked with intent.

“Those two were literally like his best friends!” She exclaimed. “I would die if they knew we were talking about him.”

“You know Cortni,” Melissa began with a sly grin. “Forget asking him to prom. You should ask one of his hunky friends to go with you instead.”

“Ooh… yes,” I said with a laugh. “That’s the perfect idea! Make him jealous!”

“I don’t think so! No way!” Cortni laughed, but Melissa and I knew this was too great an idea to pass up.

“Cortni, this is your senior prom,” I said matter-of-factly in an attempt to add emphasis to the suggestion.

“You think I don’t know that?” Cortni laughed.

“We just want you to go and have the best time,” Melissa emphasized.

“Which is why if we pass those boys on this walk again, we’re going to ask them to prom for you,” I said with determination. “I’m not going to let my baby cousin have a mediocre prom experience because she’s too shy to ask a boy.”

Cortni audibly gasped before laughing out the words, “Oh my God! No! Don’t! I will seriously die if you do!”

“Then you should ask them yourself,” Melissa encouraged. “There’s nothing hold you back! Plus, what if they say yes!?!”

“They’re not going to say yes! Those boys are really popular,” Cortni laughed before adding, “I don’t even talk to either of them, I talk to him. Honestly though, I don’t think I have anything to worry about. I can’t imagine those two taking two laps around the park.”

Well, as it would turn out, Cortni should have been a little more imaginative.

On our second lap around, as we walked along 27th street with the most gorgeous houses in town to our left and a sizeable field to our right, we could see the silhouettes of the same two boys off in the distance walking in our direction just like they had a lap ago.

“Okay Cortni, this is it,” Melissa said gleefully.

“That’s right, this is either your chance or ours to secure you a date to prom,” I added.

“I am seriously not asking them,” Cortni laughed in an elevated whisper. “Oh my God, I can’t believe they actually took two laps…” She added as her voice trailed off near the end of her words.

“Well, thankfully for us they did,” I said energetically. “Within a few short minutes Cortni you’ll either be going to prom with one of these boys or you won’t. There’s no telling what the outcome of this will be, but we won’t know till we put ourselves out there and ask.”

“I’m feeling really good about this,” Melissa said excitedly.

We continued walking towards the boys as they continued walking towards us inevitably never once assuming that we had just spent nearly a lap around the park talking about them both.

As we were within mere feet of the two of them, I caught a glimpse of Cortni and even in the dark of the night she looked like she was going to be sick. The four of us continued walking towards the boys in complete silence while they carried on with their conversation. Our two groups passed one another without saying a single word to the other. Then when we were roughly six feet beyond them, I spun around causing Melissa, Dylan, and namely Cortni, to completely freeze in place.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt you guys!” I said loudly as I projected my voice perhaps a bit more than intended.

The two boys abruptly quit talking to one another and whirled around to face us. It was in that moment that Cortni shrieked loudly and took off running into the field as fast as her little legs would carry her. The five of us still on the sidewalk all took a collective pause and watched as she ran across the perfectly mowed grass in distress.

“Yeah… sorry about her, I don’t know, that’s weird,” I said chuckling in disbelief at Cortni’s surprise response. “We were just wondering if by chance you guys happened to know what time it was?”

“Yeah, sure man,” one of the boys said kindly as he pulled out his phone to check the time while his buddy continued watching Cortni run aimlessly across the field. “It’s 9:30,” he answered.

“Awesome, I really appreciate it,” I said thankfully. “Thank you guys so much and have a great rest of your night.” And with those words the boys turned and continued walking their way as Dylan, Melissa, and I continued walking ours. “HEY CORTNI!” I shouted towards the field. “WE GOT THE TIME! IT’S 9:30!”

Cortni instantly quit running and turned around to hastily walk back towards us with her fists clenched and her shoulders sloped in anger. “Did you seriously just ask them what time it was?” Cortni said breathlessly.

“Yep, that’s all he asked,” Dylan laughed as Melissa and I did the same.

“What did you think I was going to ask them?” I said in faux exasperation, but maintaining the smile from my laughter.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Cortni laughed tiredly as she fought to catch her breath before adding, “maybe that you were going to ask them to go to prom with me! Plus, I had my phone out in my hands when we were passing them! If you really needed the time you could’ve just asked me!”

“Cortni please, they probably didn’t even notice that and I can’t believe you think I would ever do something like that to you! Do you know how embarrassing that would be for you!?!” I said as I shook my head and smiled while pretending to be offended.

“Um… do you know how embarrassing it is that I ran across the field when all you did was ask them what time it was!?!” Cortni laughed as Dylan, Melissa, and I erupted in a second wave of laughter. “Oh God, it’s going to be so embarrassing when I have to see them at school tomorrow.”

Well, as always, THANK YOU for reading and I do hope my little story here helped put a smile on your face. These are the most uncertain times any of us has ever lived and I strongly believe we could all benefit from a little more laughter. Feel free to leave me a comment below and keep an eye out for my response if you do! I always respond to each one! Also, if you haven’t done so already, please subscribe to my blog via email! I thank you in advance and appreciate your support immensely! Thank you again to ALL my readers! You all are simply THE BEST!