The Christmas Dance

A few weeks ago, Baby Sister went to the annual Hometown High Christmas dance. Which she apparently has time to do when she's not being a lead in a musical, doing face painting, or getting nominated for Best Supporting Actress by the Utah High School Musical Theatre Guild of People Who Nominate Other People. Or whatever they're called.

Basically, you will never be as cool as Baby Sister so you should just stop trying. The end.

For the dance, Baby Sister donned a teal velveteen top with a brocade skirt, a combination of her own devising. I took her to buy gold jewelry at Target and she did her own hair and makeup because, again, she's cool enough and skillful enough to do that. She looked like a million and one bucks.

All of this dance prepping reminded me of when I was Baby Sister's age and went to the Hometown High Christmas dance.

The Christmas dance is the only dressy uppy girls' choice dance at Hometown High, so you better believe I was careful about who I asked. I decided to ask the Good Guy, for reasons that you probably understand from the moniker that he is herein given.

On the day of the day of the dance I, like Baby Sister, wore teal. I'd borrowed this pretty dress from Bessie, who'd worn it to Homecoming the year before. The dress's best feature was arguably a strip of black lace around the waist. I wore it with silver jewelry and my official school dance shoes, which were black and satiny heels with little bows on the front. I was pretty excited to wear this ensemble. I was also very conscious of the fact that it was a borrowed dress, and I was determined not to get it dirty.

Now, the weather had been pretty bad that day. Not as bad as the weather earlier this week, but bad enough that Shutterbug's parents insisted on picking us up after dinner and driving us to the dance themselves.

There was snow and ice everywhere when Shutterbug, Etch-a-Sketch and I went to pick up our dates. The Good Guy lived on a fairly steep hill, so we went carefully, carefully up to get him.

Shutterbug pulled into the driveway cautiously. I stepped out of the car cautiously and took a cautious step.

Cautious, but tractionless. My official school dance shoes went one way, my torso went another, and suddenly I was sprawled on the Good Guy's driveway.

I heard the car door open. "Are you okay?" Shutterbug said.

I was okay. And the boutonnière I'd brought for the Good Guy was also okay. But the front and side of the borrowed teal dress were all wet.

And so, in my awkwardly wet dress, I trekked up the driveway so I could go inside and awkwardly complete one of the most awkward rituals of all time aka pinning a boutonnière to a boy's lapel while his parents are watching. And taking pictures.

Recently, the Good Guy found a picture of us at the dance on Facebook and shared it. You know, to be all, "Ha ha, do you remember that, Awkward Mormon Girl?" That kind of thing.

And I was all, "Ha ha DO I EVER."