Prom Part 2: The Promenade

Please see Part 1: Prom Preparation before reading this.

After the debacle inside, I grabbed Allen and ran to the limo as fast as my high heeled shoes would carry me. But I was stopped by The Kapu.

The Kapu ("gate" in Hungarian) is the front gate to our home. This gate remains locked at all times to "guard the fortress," despite the fact that my family lives in a 1920's 435 square foot, 1-bedroom house next to a ton of brand-new bi-levels and colonial homes. Coming to and leaving the house has been an issue my whole life because of The Kapu. Mom said it was to protect us from “crazy psycho killers.” The way I see it, crazy psycho serial killers are probably good at three things: psycho killing, gym class, and hoping fences. Why bother?

So as usual, I had to wait for Nagymama to come out with her key to unlock the fence as my entire prom party watched from the parked limousine. I started getting anxious; I was sure that the sight of two young adults in formalwear getting locked behind a fence by a 4-foot tall woman wearing papuchs and a babushka was getting captured on everyone’s camera. As she unlocked the gate, Nagymama made sure to throw a few more criticisms about my appearance my way before we ran like hell to the limo.

We desperately crawled into the car and I prepared myself for the onslaught of teasing. However, I found our prom party rummaging through a mini fridge in the limo and inspecting some sort of liquid in a glass decanter. My date’s friend Anthony whispered, “Yo, I think they have BOOZE on dis bus!”

I was thrilled. Not about the liquor, but about the fact that no one but my date witnesses my entire family chasing me around the back yard with cameras, curling irons, and kapu keys. But my joy quickly subsided when my friend Crystal said, "Whoa, what smells like dirty diapers?"

“We live in New Jersey, EVERYTHING smells like dirty diapers,” I retorted.

Thank goodness, everyone laughed and their attention turned back to the booze, which Anthony was proudly pouring into Dixie Cups. But I knew the truth - it was the letcho! The stench of peppers cooked for ten-thousand years probably covered every single inch of my being, and probably my date's tux, too. My grandma always tried very hard, but her cooking usually causes mild nausea and the occasional seizures.

Suddenly, the door of the limo opened. Crystal’s date, Keith, started to climb into the car. But the driver spotted Allen drinking the mystery booze, pushed Keith to the side, and started screaming something unintelligible in Russian. He grabbed the cups, poured the contents on Keith’s driveway, grabbed the rest of the Dixie Cups, and brought them to the front of the limo with him.

Keith sat down and we immediately took off. “Uh, what the hell just happened?”

“The driver musta left the booze in the car from the last people and now he’s pissed,” said Anthony.

My date chimed in, “Yeah, but he took away our cups and not the booze, if that makes any damned sense.”

Anthony scoffed. “I don’t need a cup to drink booze, cups are for sissies.”

“Please, Tony,” I begged, “Don’t be an ass.”

But he still reached for the decanter of mystery liquid and took a swig. And then the “privacy partition” between us and the driver dropped down. So Keith put used the remote to put it back up. And the driver put it back down.

“I can do dis all day!” the driver yelled.

Great, I thought. My mom’s sent one of her spies from the old country to make sure we don’t have any fun.

Eventually, we made it to our high school for the "Promenade." Now, I'm not sure if it's typical for most schools to have this, but my high school had a prom opening ceremony where the staff and parents would decorate the cafeteria with balloons and crepe paper in order to take more embarrassing photos of their awkward teenagers. I figured my mom wouldn’t really understand the custom, so I didn’t invite my family to this event. Besides, I was still reeling from the last time my mom came to my school when she managed to embarrass me in front of everyone watching the football game (I’ll write more on that some other blog).

It was customary for all the prom-goers to enter through the back of building in order to “make an entrance” through The Archway, aka, some hideous sparkly crepe paper explosion some soccer moms glued together. I tried to walk with my Allen, but he already ran ahead to talk to Keith about monster trucks or something. Anthony was busy talking to the other people in the party that I didn’t know. Luckily, I wasn’t alone because Crystal had fallen behind as she struggled to make it through the freshly mopped hallway in her three-inch heels. She rolled her eyes, “Why are they running like they have a class to catch?”

I looked over at her and suddenly remembered that I looked hideous. Crystal was tall, thin, confident. She was reminiscent of Cinderella in her $250 baby blue dress from the local bridal shop. She had French tips put onto her fingers with the tiniest rhinestones decorating the center of each nail. Her long blonde hair on top of her head into a cascade of curls, flowers with a fantastic jeweled comb adorning her tresses like a crown. Compared to her, I looked like I just stepped out of a garbage pile. I couldn’t wait to get to the actual prom where there would be flog machines and dark corners for me to hide in.

As fast as we tried to walk, we couldn’t catch up to the herd of boys. As we rounded the corner, we heard an eruption of laugher come from inside the cafeteria. Apparently, Allen and Keith unknowingly walked through the archway together, and didn’t even notice that people were taking pictures of them as if they were a couple. They just continued their conversation about GTO’s and V8 engines while walking down the isle of confetti, glitter, and tool, unaware of the implications.

Crystal smacked her hand to her head. “Freaking morons.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” For a moment, I was excited because I thought this meant that I didn’t have to walk through The Arch. Oh, I am not that lucky.

The hired photographer started flailing his hands,“No no no no no, where are your dates?”

The boys simultaneously turned around. “Oh.”

Crystal glided up the walkway next to Keith with the grace of Marilyn Monroe. I was next – my date didn’t even want to hold my arm. We walked a few feet and as I was ready to run the other way, the damned photographer had to put his two cents in again.

“Um, honey, can you take off your shoes so you’re not taller than him? Just for the picture.”

I was begging for some higher power to strike him down from above. Lightning. Thunder. Locusts. Even TOADS would have made me happy. But instead, I just gave in and took off my big boat shoes. The photographer rubbed his chin.

“Nope, you’re STILL taller. Can somebody grab me The Chair?”

Oooo, The Chair! Alas, it was not the blessed relief of 2000 volts surging through my body as I had hoped. It was simply some cheap, painted-wood, fake-flowered monstrosity that got passed down the isle. The entire cafeteria watched as I struggled to put my shoes back on without my top falling down. The photographer awkwardly positioned us and snapped a photo.

Again, if I ever find this damned picture, I am BURNING IT.

We ended up talking to a bunch of parents and then made our way back to the limo towards the prom. Where, believe it or not, this story gets WORSE. (To be continued.)

Photo by Maciej Lewandowski

Prom Part 1: Prom Preparation

I was thrilled one day when my friend Allen, a Senior at the time, asked me to go to the prom with him. But there was an issue with getting a prom dress. I didn't come from a ton of money, so the idea of spending between $100-$250 on a dress you would never wear again was ridiculous. But my aunt was the queen of savings and a great seamstress, so we figured we could just find a discount gown and she would "make it work."

I probably tried on about 500 fuchsia-sequin encrusted-lace-imbibed dresses before I found "The Black Dress." The black dress actually reached to my ankles (which was a difficult feat, being 5'11") and had amazing rhinestone spaghetti straps. And it was on clearance $19.95. I had struck gold!

Somehow, my aunt convinced me to buy it a few sizes too big because she was convinced that I was "still growing," and I had six months before the prom. She assured me that she would alter the dress on the night before the prom so I could have a perfect fit.

The problem is, my aunt sewed couch cushions, not dresses, and business had been so busy that she didn't have time to deal with the gown. Before we knew it, the prom was upon us, and my dress was still not altered. But my cousin promised we could make it work!

"You know, all the stars just glue themselves into their dresses before their award shows?" she claimed.

"Really?" I asked. This sounded like a really good idea.

I am a moron.

The night of the prom, my cousin attempted to crazy glue this dress to me and I was literally hanging out of it. To make matters worse, the crazy glue left a huge white stain on the front of the dress. I freaked out, and Nagymama didn't notice - she was more worried about me eating dinner, which consisted of a huge bowl of "letcho." "Letcho", is a dish made of various sewed peppers, tomatoes and rice. Supposedly, it is really, really good. But Nagymama always cooked it for HOURS, until it was completely falling apart and stuck up the house. She also never used spices, which is the whole POINT of being Hungarian, if you ask me!

"My dress doesn't fit! My life is over!" I wailed.

"No problem!" my aunt said. "We'll fix it."

There is no weirder sensation than having your cousin curl your hair while your aunt is coloring in your boob with a Sharpie marker while your Nagymama is trying to spoon mounds of letcho into your mouth.

"Nagymama, you're going to ruin her lipstick!" my cousin screamed.

"She needs to eat! And you're making her look like a whore!" Nagymama said.

"You're gonna to poke her eye out with dat eyeliner!" my mom cried.

"Stephie, you should really get a better pushup bra next time," my aunt suggested.

Did I mention that this room was only large enough to hold a bed, a television and perhaps two people? Not an entire family full of women with hot curling irons and various phobias.

So, finally, my cousin held up a mirror. And I cried.

My hair was "crimped" not curled, which might have been great in the 80's, but not 1999. My eyeliner looked more like raccoon makeup than "Sexy and Smoky." My chest was red from the chemical burn and I had a big hard black shiny spot in the center of my dress. And the fabulous rhinestones had started to fall out of the spaghetti straps.

It was at that exact moment Allen arrived at the door.

"ONE MORE MINUTE PLEASE!" I struggled to fix myself as best I could to avoid exposing my naive date to my family under all this stress.

My grandma immediately cornered him and tried to make him sit at our sticky kitchen table. She already had a bowl of letcho waiting for him. He politely declined and then informed us that the limo was waiting outside.

Just as I was about to panic, he said, "Here, I got you this," he said. He put a beautiful corsage of white roses, covered in flecks of glitter on my wrist.

I smiled. For a moment, I felt pretty. And then my cousin said, "Where's the boutonniere?"

I was confused. "What's a boutonniere?" I asked. I looked at Allen and he shrugged.

In the distance, I hear a microwave beep but thought nothing of it.

My cousin was exasperated. "You moron! You're supposed to buy your date a flower that matches your corsage so people know you are together!"

I had never been to the prom before or witnessed anyone else's prom-goings, so I had no idea that this was a custom. My cheeks turned bright red.

"No problem," my aunt said. "Ve'll improvise." She pulled the corsage off my wrist, grabbed a kitchen knife, and started hacking it to pieces.

Meanwhile, Nagymama walked over to my date with a glass of orange juice. "Nice boy" as she patted him on the back. Problem is, when you're about 4 feet tall, if you want to pat someone on the back, your hand usually lands on their ass. My date got a weird look on his face.

"MOM! NAGYMAMA IS TOUCHING ALLEN INNAPPROPRIATELY!"

He looked over at me. "No, it's okay, she's fine...but I really can't finish this....drink. I don't want to offend her."

I realized that she had microwaved the orange juice she had given him. She was always afraid that people would catch a cold, so she frequently warmed up beverages in the microwave - nothing was ever hot, but everything I drank growing up was usually "piss warm."

"Oh, god, forget it, we're leaving."

I threw the drink in the sink, grabbed Allen's hand, and ran out the door with my aunt chased after us. "Vait, vait! Dah flowers!"

My aunt grabbed my date and struggled to pin the hacked apart corsage bits onto his lapel. I pulled the tattered remnants of the corsage back on my wrist and started heading towards this gate.

My mom stopped us. "Vait! Von last ting! Let me get a picture of the happy couple!"

If I ever find this picture, I am going to burn the damned thing.

(To be continued)

Photo by Sasha Dunaevski

The Lake House (vs. The Doll House)

(Please see Part 1, The Doll House, before reading this entry).

My aunt’s lake house in North Jersey was always the highlight of my summers. On the way down, we would always stop at this cute little homemade ice cream shop at the side of the road. Despite my mother’s protests, my aunt always ordered me a two-scoop Black Raspberry ice cream on a sugar cone. Normally, mom usually wouldn’t let me get “red colored” ice cream or italian ice because she was afraid I would stain my clothes, and she wouldn’t allow me to get sugar or waffle cones because she was afraid they would break my teeth. Needless to say, I still hate vanilla ice cream and “cake cones” to this day.

On this particular afternoon, I wolfed down the ice cream as fast as I could, and between brain freezes, I begged my family to get back in the car.

My mother rolled her eyes. “Vait vait, don’t vorry, you’ll get to play the Candyland soon.”

Normally, I was thrilled to go to the lake house because I got to play with the antiquated Candyland that they kept on the coffee table. Being an only was lonely at times, and my two cousins proved to be better opponents than my Barbies and my knock-off Teddy Ruxpin. But this time, I was anxious to get to there because I knew what was in the trunk – the doll house.

We finally arrived at the house, which was one of about fifteen other old, wood-faced homes on the lake. As usual, we parked about a million miles away from the house. Parking was frequently an issue since the locals hogged all the spots with their broken down “classic cars.” I could bet money that even 20 years after the fact, the same rusty 1960’s GTO is still sitting in my aunt’s assigned parking spot.

My family dragged the many bags through the overgrown jungle that was the side yard. My aunt always “meant to” bring a lawnmower out to the house, the very same way her husband always “meant to” fix the planks on the adjoining boat garage - until the planks inevitably caved and allowed their untied speedboat to float up Cranbury Lake and out of their lives. We managed to pull the bags through the tangle of weeds, but one of the bags ripped, spreading shoes and itchy sweaters everywhere. There was general chaos until my aunt ran up to get another garbage bags. She wore a pair of stained gardening gloves to avoid poking herself with thistles that were now embedded in the clothing. She scooped everything into the bag and we dragged it up the rickety staircase into the Lake House.

I sat on the couch and looked at the hideous stuffed fish that was mounted above the foyer as my family grabbed the rest of our belongings from the car. I spotted the infamous triangular bag in the corner of the room. The excessive pulling, pushing, and dragged left several dime-sized hole in the bag, and I could clearly see the pink plastic facing and the purple shutters.

As I went to reach for it, my mother walked through the door and yelled, "Don't touch that! Now, go pee so ve need to go get firevood and tings from dah store!"

There were several issues with this request. First and foremost, I just wanted to play with the stupid dollhouse, but I didn’t dare disobey my mother because she would tell – and since I was an overly-sensitive seven-year old, I would cry whenever someone yelled at me.

The other issue was that peeing at the Lake House was an unpleasant, multi-step process. It required going into the horribly scary bathroom with no light, trying to find the toilet to “go” in, and then promptly going down to the lake with a bucket, washing your hands with the weird-smelling lye soap, and then bringing the bucket full of soapy water back upstairs in order to flush the water-less toilet. I would have rather “held it” for a few more hours.

And then of course there was the firewood store. This required us to cross the entire lake using the longest, most rickety swinging wooden bridge on the planet. For whatever reason, I was the only one terrified of this bridge - maybe because I can't swim. As usual, by the time we walked all the way to the bridge, my mom and aunt were engrossed in conversation, so didn't seem to hear my terrified yelps as my cousins swung the bridge to and fro, screaming, "Oh, no, it's gonna fall!"

We finally arrived at the wood store and they bought some lighter fluid and kindling for the fireplace. The store was on the main road, so it seemed like we were only off the bridge for a minute before we had to go back onto it. I couldn’t handle anymore teasing, so I stood at the entrance, hysterically brawling until my aunt scooped me up and carrying me all the way across.
I think my cousins felt guilty, so they immediately opened the Candyland box when we got into the house. For a moment, I forgot about the dollhouse in the other room and fell into the world of "Plumpy" and "Queen Frostine" in the Gum Drop Mountain. I heard my aunt gathering the wood for a fire, while my mom pulled out sandwiches for us from the cooler. We munched on our dinner as my aunt lit the fire, and my mom put on a pair of plastic gloves. My mom grabbed one of the garbage bags and asked my aunt something inaudible.

"This is it!" I thought, "I'm gonna get my toys!" I figured I would be generous and share some of the clothes with my cousins, but not any of the toys because they were so mean to me on the bridge.

My mom rooted through the garbage and pulled out a pair of jeans. My aunt looked at them, nodded…and then she threw them into the flames.

I was confused at what was happening at first, until I saw my mom grab a brand new teddy bear and toss it in like an old rag.

I screamed. I cried. My mother and aunt were genuinely confused.

I ran to protect the dollhouse, nearly impaling myself on its pointed roof. My mom screamed at me to back away. "Dese are Lisa's tings! They are not for you! Don't touch them - you don't want to catch the asthma, do you?"

Turns out, my mom and aunt were always told by Nagymama that everyone had "Infection Asthma ." And I guess they believed her. After all, that's why Lisa, her mom, her sister, and her brother had asthma - it couldn't POSSIBLY have anything to do with genetics.

So, on that day, a lot of things went up in flames, including my hope and dreams for a Barbie Dollhouse. In retrospect, I know my family was just looking out for me (even though the fumes from burning plastic probably caused more damage than a made-up disease ever would). But even today, as a 25-year old woman, every time I see a fireplace, I see a mental picture of a sad-looking teddy bear melting into oblivion.

Eh, what’s a childhood without some scars, right?