Out of my mind
Prom Quest

By Debbie Carini

There are battles we have with our teenage children and then there are the battles we wage on their behalf.

This is how I found myself, two weeks before the prom, digging in the trenches and outmaneuvering dozens of determined moms on the formal dress floor of a major department store.

We were all on reconnaissance for the perfect prom dress.  The scene was littered with ripped tags and crumpled lumps of sequined satin. A couple of moms sat on benches, shell-shocked by high prices and plunging necklines.

I was in desperation mode—after 5 hours and what seemed like 12 miles of mall marching, my daughter had declared: “I don’t really see anything I like.”

I imagined the next 14 days as an endless, anxiety-riddled search through several counties.  If we couldn’t find a dress, how were we going to get shoes and accessories?  Figure out hair and make-up?  I summoned my strictest mom voice: “This is our mission today.  We have to go back in and find a prom dress.”

I stationed her in a dressing room and went out on the floor to wrestle with tangled straps and broken hangers.  “Are we all searching for a two?” I wondered as I tried to outrun another mom to a rack of small sizes.

I returned to our base of operations with several flouncy frocks.

“Mom, I don’t want to look like a cake,” said my daughter.  I was starting to taste defeat.  Back on the selling floor, sales people were in triage, trying to put things back and hold off desperate pleas, “can’t you call every store in the country and see if you have this in a size 4, in yellow?”

I did want my daughter to love her dress. I loved the dress I wore to my prom.  It was a mint-green feat of man-made fiber engineering as was my boyfriend’s matching mint green tuxedo (complete with ruffled shirt).  Our only cause of concern was a lit match—we were totally coordinated and highly combustible.

Reminiscing, I found myself searching in a rack of double-digit sizes. I was clearly lost and about to wave the white flag when victory was at my fingertips: mixed in with the 12s, a perfect size two, sophisticated flame-stitch knit in black and gold almost as she had described it. I rushed it to the dressing room and it was love at first sight in the tri-fold mirror. 

I was so delirious with relief I fear I wasn’t in full control of my faculties when the seamstress came in and walloped-off several inches of fabric from the garment’s hem.  I was also in somewhat of an altered state when I later handed over my credit card to pay for the 6-inch black leather and gold lame high heels.

We staggered out of the mall and into the bright daylight.  Prom shopping vanquished and mom famished.  A conquest worthy of a frozen yogurt—even my daughter agreed.