On Campus

That other four-letter word

Prom, an inescapable Nerd Hell

It sounds harmless. Benign. Even inconsequential. More neutral than taupe-coloured, vanilla-flavoured tofu. But this four-letter word can mean only one thing. Yes, I’m talking about Prom.

Last Thursday, after renting a tux, buying a corsage for my date, and surviving the regular six-and-a-half hours of school, I then returned for yet another four hours. Forget doing fun stuff like calculus, chemistry, or surgically removing all my toenails using only a blunt plastic spoon and a hole punch. Instead of studying for my math test the next day, I got to spend four straight hours moving around a dance floor.

Yes, I’m kidding of course. I didn’t go. I mean, in order to be sent to Nerd Hell, I’d first have to do something really evil, like snap a TI-83 graphing calculator in half, or covet my neighbour’s Boba Fett action figure.

But according to my parents, I was being seriously antisocial by not attending the Cool Faction’s last chance at feeling superior to the Nerdian Republic.

Really, Proms are kind of like Frosted Flakes. Judging by the commercials, which have Tony the Tiger outperforming dozens of sweaty athletes, you might think that sugar-bathed cereal somehow promotes sports skills. Instead of giving you type-two diabetes. And bad teeth. My point being, Proms are trying to sell themselves as being a fun time, instead of what they really are.

An inescapable Nerd Hell.

Even if you ignored the fact that Prom is a super-concentrated high school social setting, it’s still really expensive. Not only do you have to pay for the privilege of looking like a dork in public (as in, renting a tuxedo). The inventor of the Prom, also known as the Architect of Annoying and Overrated Social Activities, came up with a whole bunch of other inventive ways of wasting money.

Take the whole concept of a ‘corsage,’ for instance. Much to my surprise, a corsage isn’t something that rich women from the Victorian era wore under their poofy dresses. It’s a bunch of flowers. Flowers whose sole purpose in life is to be worn on someone’s wrist. And cost money.

Not to mention that there are plenty of other things I would rather do for four hours. Like watch a movie starring Jean-Claude Van Damme AND Adam Sandler. While peeling off both eyelids with a Lego brick.

Or, in accordance with Nerd Protocol and Code of Conduct, simply study for my math test.

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