Prom Date

On occasion my restless spirit will scan the "zillion" channel television service (I pay too much for ) for something good to watch.
I failed and ended watching yet another "angst" ridden prom movie. Doesn't matter which one. They are all the same.
As I watched, I thought how great I felt to not be that age again. Then I tried to remember what the experience was like.
First of all, I was not the social hit in high school. I transferred to the biggest school in my county from one of the smallest in the 10th grade. Culture shock was a gentle term compared to walking into a school of 1600 kids at the age of 14. For once, the desire to run home and put on girls clothes was the least of my problems.
For three years I did stay basically invisible and made good enough grades to get into a pretty good private college and went to my Junior and Senior Proms.
My junior prom was basically the girl choosing me because she needed a date.  She was my first real date and seemingly we had a good time but never went out again. I do remember not really wanting to wear her dress.
My senior prom was much different. I was socially active and had a steady girlfriend from the other high school in town. Interestingly my time with her was one of the few times in my life I didn't think about being the other gender. She was tall and blond and my old "60" Chevy Convertible just happened to be running good. The
big night included visits to both proms and dinner of course in a supper club in Dayton.
Looking back over the years, I guess my biggest fantasy was how it would be to have the guy be embarrassed to find a spot to pin the bouquet on my strapless gown.
Ironically I never reached that point but I did get a chance to go back to the very same supper club decades later. It closed and reopened as a gay venue and as such I had many chances to visit the very same women's bathroom my date used so many years ago.  I stopped and carefully adjusted my makeup the way I imagined she did. We spent the summer together before I left for college and she became serious about finding a husband in the Vietnam War era.
Tragically, my date committed suicide years later. Rumor had it she was depressed over losing her looks and husband again. (2nd marriage). How sad she couldn't have felt worth in herself as a woman past the mirror.
So much for just watching a harmless prom movie.
Here's the only other "catch" in the 8th grade. I broke my collarbone playing football. The doc said he was just going to stabilize it and it would heal. The quote was "he won't be wearing a low cut dress anyhow"!
Wow was he wrong!