I Learned the Truth at 17

 

 

When I was a kid, I thought 17 was going to be the most fantastic age. I was wrong.

While it wasn’t horrible, it was not what I had hoped.

I turned 17 near the end of 11^th grade, and most of 12^th grade made up the rest. It’s what people think of as a prime age, when people are dating and attending proms, and generally making high school memories. I wish that had been my experience.

My junior prom was less than ideal. With little to no possibility of a date, and facing the prospect of the humiliating horror of not attending the prom – people allowed to attend the prom stag have no idea of the shame involved in missing the prom at the time,  and we couldn’t attend without a date – my mother negotiated with one of her friends for her son to be my date. All I had to do was call him and ask.

All?  They had no idea what they were asking. I barely knew the boy. He was cute, and I, an introvert, had to make a phone call and speak to him! The hours of rehearsing what I was going to say, what I would say if someone else answered, the calming of my shaking hands, can only be imagined.

Finally, I worked up my nerve, and when I asked him the stammered question, he said, “No, I don’t think so.”

My response? An embarrassed, “Okay, bye.”

In a flood of embarrassed tears, I screamed at my mother for setting me up for such humiliation. How could anyone say he’d go with me, and then have this happen?

Now, not only would I be humiliated before my classmates for not attending the prom, I had embarrassed myself by even having a moment of thinking I could actually experience the same things my peers did. Yet again it was, Mother, they don’t like me.

A few minutes later, the phone rang. It was his mother, who spoke with my mother. Then they wanted me to talk to him. Oh, no! I would probably never be able to look at him again, much less speak to him. It was too humiliating.

My mother finally talked me into – coerced me into – taking the phone. The boy in question told me he would go. According to him – I suspect this was a parental excuse concocted for the occasion – he thought I said the senior prom, and he didn’t want to wear a tuxedo. Since it was semi-formal and only required a regular suit, he would go. He still didn’t sound thrilled, so I thought he’d probably been the victim of the same sort of coercion I’d had to make me talk to him on the phone.

I would be going to the junior prom. I was fine with my mother making my dress – I picked out the pattern and the colors – and I thought everything would be fine.

But this was 17. Since my date was a year younger than I was, he wasn’t quite 16, or at least didn’t yet have a driver’s license. My parents held the archaic notion that the girl couldn’t possibly drive on a date. So, my father drove us there, and would pick us up at the end. At least no one I knew noticed.

Good times the rest of the night, right? Um, no.

My date wouldn’t dance with me on claims of a bad back (at 15?). I managed to cajole him into dancing the slow dances with me, at least.

At one point I went to the ladies’ room. When I came back into the school cafeteria, where the dance was taking place, I was accosted by a couple of my friends, who pulled me out into the hallway.

“Did you know your date is telling everyone he’s in ninth grade?” they asked.

I couldn’t imagine how that would come up in conversation. “He is,” I replied.

“You’re dating someone two years younger than you?” they asked, horrified.

It shouldn’t have mattered. At least I had a date. I should have left it at that. But out of embarrassment at their attitude I said, “No, he’s only a year younger. He was left back somewhere along the line.”

I was in first track, one of the “smart” kids. The idea that I was on a date with someone who had been left back, no matter when, was worse than the fact that he was younger, given the prejudice of the day. It seemed nothing I could do or say met with approval.

When I returned to my date, I asked why he had told people that. He shrugged. It was obviously no big deal to him. Or maybe he thought it was cool being a Freshman at the Junior prom.

That wasn’t the end of Murphy’s Law’s interference in my attendance at the Junior prom.

When the prom ended, my dad was nowhere to be found. My date and I waited inside the school as everyone else went to their cars and presumably, home.

Still, we waited.

I went to the payphone with a borrowed dime and made a reversed charges call home. My father had fallen asleep, and my mother, who “couldn’t sleep if any of us was out,” hadn’t woken him up, since she was probably waiting up asleep.

I was used to being the forgotten child in elementary school, when my father frequently picked me up late from choir practice because he was waiting for my brother to finish gymnastics practice and shower before taking him home. But my brother was in college! I was the only child left at home, and they still forgot me!

We were asked to wait outside because the cleanup crew had to do their thing.

Finally, about half an hour after everyone else had gone, my father arrived.

Being 17 wasn’t all bad. I went to Dorney Park and Seaside Heights in the summer, and had fun despite sunburn – high SPF sun blocks weren’t a thing then.

And then there was Senior year.

Near the beginning of the year we received our school rings. Mass, a day of following superstitious ring-turning traditions and a dance that night were the order of the day.

Knowing this was coming, I enlisted the help of the leader of the church guitar group to which I belonged, to interest one of the other members in asking me to the dance. He, like me, had about a zero chance of a date, so by asking me, he ensured that we both could go.

Finally, my luck was changing. My friends and I sat at lunch taking about who we were going to the dance with, what we were wearing, and all the details involved.

He came to my house for pictures that evening, and then we went to his house for the same before leaving for the dance.

But Murphy hadn’t finished with me yet. Or maybe it was the full moon.

Ten minutes before we reached the school where the dance was held, we came to a red light. My date didn’t notice it was red. He also didn’t notice the car stopped at it until I yelled. Too late. The car slammed into the one stopped at the light, knocking it across the intersection.

These were the days before mandatory seat belts, padded dashboards and airbags. My date had braces on his teeth. His face hit the steering wheel, breaking the braces and sending the wires into his gums. I flew forward, breaking the windshield with my head. My knees hitting the bottom of the dashboard kept me from going through the windshield.

Needless to say, we didn’t make the dance. Instead, we spent the night in the emergency room, which was probably more fun. It was very crowded. The nurses insisted that was due to the full moon.

After being gowned and taken to x-ray, I got to lie on a gurney in the hallway for lack of more private space. At one point, a knifing victim decided to leave, and made it as far as my gurney before he passed out and fell to the floor.

While I was treated with kid gloves, probably due to having come in by ambulance, my date was ignored because his only injury was due to his braces. Apparently, if they touched him and he lost any teeth, the hospital would be held liable.

When my parents arrived, my mother was livid that they were ignoring my date. When they explained why, my mother asked for a wet washcloth. She had my date wipe the blood off his face, then she set about cleaning any blood from his shirt so stains wouldn’t set in.

I had only a mild concussion, so no real cause for concern when there was a blood-stained shirt to take care of.

They let us both go home, and gave my parents a fact-sheet of things to check for.

At the time, concussions weren’t treated the way they are now. I returned to school on Monday. I had 10 years perfect attendance, and I wasn’t about to ruin that over a bump on the head.

My friends asked where I was Friday night. When I told them, they didn’t believe me. They assumed I’d made up a story because I didn’t have a date – and these were my friends! I had to take one girl’s hand and run it across the bump on my forehead before she believed me. (It didn’t show because of my bangs.)

At least Senior prom, when I was 18, didn’t involve any drama on my part. My date for the ill-fated ring dance was also my date for the prom. We arrived without incident – we went with two other friends, one of whom drove. Although he was no more willing to dance than my Junior prom date had been, we sat at a table with friends and had a good time.

There was plenty of drama that night, but none of it had to do with my date or me, so we simply got to watch.

It was nice to have something happen where Mr. Murphy wasn’t invited.