I am quite excited for this Green Key celebration thing. Although I am still not clear on exactly what the whole deal is about. Alcohol abuse is a safe guess, I surmise.
You might think that, '01 that I am, I would have seen one of these deals before. Well, not so! The boy's crafty, and last year he ducked home (don't laugh) to go to a high school senior prom with one of his friends.
Krista is her name. Krista was somewhat of a Rob crush for quite some time, and so when she asked Rob to her senior prom of course he said he'd go. On a side note, back in those days Rob didn't have such issues with always referring to himself in the third person. This began last term, when a girl on Rob's Mexican LSA would not stop with the goddamn third person in referring to herself (this is true), and I guess with all the ambient Spanish, some of us, including me, weren't hearing enough correct English and we all forgot about "I."
I digress. At any rate, I went to Krista's prom instead of staying here for this Green Key thing. It was quite an elaborate deal to find a tux for said prom. Freshman that I was with no car and no friends with a car, I went to rent the tux at Serry's, the local menswear store that is about the size of a Dunkin Donuts box, but with less variety inside, and less Boston Creme. Or something like that.
As much as we civilized humans like the idea of a societal division of labor to ease the lives of all, there is a logical yet absurd conclusion to that development. It's called Serry's. At Serry's there is one man who knows all there is to know about fitting shoes, and two others who are similarly wise in the ways of Tuxedo. Except that one of the Tuxedo Grand Masters has been there like 47 years, and the other 46 years 11 months, and Grand Master A ("Bob") never lets Grand Master B ("Jim") forget who is the more experienced.
"Goddammit Jim, will you let me do this? I've been at this 47 years; I think I know what I am doing." I honest to God heard that quote emanate from Bob's mouth. Bob and Jim were both trying to measure me for a jacket, and they were obviously stepping on each other's turf. The shoe guy was also there for a third opinion, but nobody was listening to him. After some not insubstantial debate about what size cuff you'd want and whether you might want to go a half inch bigger on the neck since I would be dancing, it finally came down to re-establishing the pecking order. After a few exchanged blows Bob stepped back, wheeled around, and kicked Jim in the head. He then proceeded to whip Jim with the tape-measure, at the same time muttering to himself about "uppity youngun's." After that it was time to get shoes, and I must say I was quite glad there was only one shoe man.
Thus it was that I was fully tuxedo equipped when the weekend of Green Key arrived and Momma Valet came to get me for the trek back to Upstate New York (the part of New York that makes up for not having anything to do by snowing more, so at least you don't feel like you are missing anything when you are stuck at home).
The prom itself (as I said, don't laugh) was actually a lot of fun. We had dinner, danced the night away, and went to a cute little high school post-prom party. I didn't even feel that out of place at the actual prom. A disturbing number of people from my high school senior class were there, so it ended up being kind of a reunion. I guess no one in my class had anything better to do; who knows. At any rate, it was kind of like we were the "big kids," not just the "old lame kids," which was probably more like it.
Even so, I had a wonderful time back in high school land. After my prom adventure, I must say this weekend has a lot to live up to. Although one definite advantage that this Green Key thing has running in its favor is that I don't have to rent a tux.
