Before I get into this blogpost, I would just like to mention that I found out last night that a friend of mine from a summer program a few years ago passed away yesterday morning: Will Mallory. I'm sure he'll be missed by a lot of people, and I hope his family and close friends can find peace somehow. It's things like this that make you realize how quickly your life can be taken away from you. So carpe diem, my friends; say what you need to say and do what you need to do today.
Anyway, this blogpost is about a debacle that occurred around my senior prom regarding a certain mode of transportation . . .
I've never really been one to get overly excited about school functions. (Okay, yes, there was that awkward period of my life where I was a member of my middle school's dance team and, as such, got pretty jazzed about basketball games and pep rallies; but that age of embarrassment simply doesn't count.) I rarely attended sporting events in high school, I wasn't a huge proponent of "spirit week" (I had about as much spirit as a dead Ben Stein), and I'm pretty sure I only had one article of clothing affiliated with my school's name and/or mascot. I'm not exactly positive why I wasn't into that whole high school "experience"; most likely it's because I'm generally not an excitable person, and I also wasn't a fan of about 90% of my fellow students. But, for whatever reason, I was pretty pumped up for senior prom.
Junior prom had been a lot more fun than I had expected it to be (though it had been held in a place that looked like it should house terrorists being tortured for information and/or Martha Stewart's holding cell at Camp Cupcake), and senior prom was supposed to be at least a hundred times more awesome--no hyperbole intended. Somehow, though, my prom group (henceforth referred to as The Posse) hadn't really prepared for this raucous event in any way, shape, or form. It was approximately two weeks until the fest o' fun was to occur, and we didn't have much of an idea of how our evening would play out.
So my mother and I, being the hyper-obsessive and "planny" people that we are (spontaneity is not a virtue we hold dear and schedules are my adult pacifier--not that I need one of those or anything), took the liberty of arranging the evening. We chose to do the stereotypical prom picture sesh (I mean, really, if you're going to pay $500 for a dress you're only going to wear one time, the least you can do is take pictures of it) at my friend Megan's house; we chose a classy (and by "classy" I mean they serve cold soup and their patrons rarely arrive before 9:00 p.m.) Italian ristorante for dinner and made the appropriate reservations; we decided to have the (also stereotypical) prom sleepover at my friend Caroline's house. All the necessary decisions had been made and plans had been drawn up--all, that is, except for one major detail: the limo.
We called place after place after place after place and couldn't find a single limo that was available for the evening of our prom. Apparently there were several other proms stealing our school's thunder that night, and, because we had waited so long, we were essentially up Shit Creek without a paddle. I was infuriated. We couldn't drive ourselves to the senior prom; please, that was so junior prom. I mean, if we couldn't have a limo, we might as well have rolled up to prom on some big red tricycles with Pokemon cards in the spokes (of course, I say that like it's embarrassing, and yet I just acquired a stuffed Squirtle and squealed with pleasure). Anyone who was anyone who was anyone was going to be showing up to senior prom in a slick black limousine--and okay, we weren't exactly a group of "anyones," but if those buffoons got to ride to prom in limos, we wanted to, too.
Desperate, we started looking beyond the first page of Google results (which, as we all know, is the only page with legitimate links that are actually remotely relevant to your search query). Around page eleven--where we were starting to graze in "super spam male-enhancement-ad" territory--we found a company that claimed to have an attainable limo for the evening of our prom: the Community and Aztec Limousine Service. Hallelujah; we were saved (like Spiderman rescuing Mary Jane from peril kind of "saved", not like "dunk me in water and it's like I was re-emitted from the womb" kind of "saved")! We called the company right away and requested a black Town Car stretch limo--because party buses are Jank Central, and those big SUV limos are for people who are trying to compensate for their disproportionately small organs (get your mind out of the gutter, I'm talking about their kidneys). I was so thrilled that we would be cruising through the evening in style--though, because of steep costs, we could only afford to take it to dinner, to prom, and then back to Megan's. Regardless, The Posse was so ready to class it up at Prom X ("X" being the Roman numeral ten, because we're ultra-hip).
The evening finally arrived and I was running late; it's amazing how much time it takes to put on a dress and pay someone to stick your hair in a bun. I guess I hadn't planned very well. Rolling up to Megan's house, however, I was one of the first people to have arrived. This is extremely typical Posse behavior; had we not been meeting at Megan's house, she probably would have been the latest of them all. The limo was to arrive at six-thirty, and we were supposed to start pictures at five-thirty--in reality, we began the photo session around six-oh-five. We exchanged corsages and boutonnieres with our dates, watched our parents gossip, tried to get our cameras to cooperate--but mostly, we were getting psyched about our limo ride.
Around six-twenty-five, the most outrageous vehicle I have ever seen came charging down Megan's street. It was a monstrous Escalade limousine, which was bad enough, but to make matters worse, it was the exact color of Pepto-Bismol. We all pointed and laughed, feeling sorry for the poor saps who would be carted to their prom in that ridiculous excuse for an automobile. If Barbie were Ke$ha, this is the mode of transportation she would park outside her Dream House. We all started singing that obnoxious Pepto Bismol song--"Nausea, heartburn, indigestion," etc.--discussing how funny it would be if that were actually our limo. How preposterous!
And then it parked outside of Megan's house.
Well all stood there, confused, looking around at each other like we had just caught Steve Jobs using an Android.
Dead silence. Then: "Megan . . . Are any of your neighbors having their prom tonight, too . . . ?"
"I . . . I don't think so . . . "
"M--maybe he's got the wrong house . . . ?"
"Yeah . . . That's gotta be it." (Lots of audible ellipses, obviously.)
And then we saw it: on the rear window of the hooker-in-vehicle-form, there was a big cursive logo that read "Community and Aztec Limousine Service."
You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me.
My mom doubled over with laughter.
"Ha ha, Mom, very funny. But seriously, where's our real limo?"
She kept laughing.
"Mom, where is our limo!? We really need to get going!"
She wiped the tears out of her eyes, dry heaving because she couldn't get enough air. She managed to get out, "I--think--this is--really--your limo" before busting out into another bout of laughter.
It wasn't long before the rest of The Posse joined her chortle-fest. But me, I was enraged, like Barry Bonds all jacked up on steroids, like a Belieber after watching Wizards of Waverly Place.
"Mother, what are we going to do!? This is not what we ordered! We can't take this thing to prom! It's the Pepto Bismol-mobile!" I went into some kind of hysterical caniption, complete with eye twitching and convulsions, like an eight-year-old on Five Hour Energy; part of me wanted to laugh because I realized how ridiculous a situation we were in, but at the same time, I was horrified at the thought of actually having to be seen in this visual strain of chlamydia.
My mom finally recovered enough to start attempting to mend our predicament. "Okay, honey, let's just go talk to the driver. Maybe they can send a different limo out here. Maybe there was a mix-up."
"I'm not doin' it--I want no part of this. You go talk to 'em!" I seethed. It didn't help that I couldn't walk two steps without tripping over my dress or slipping out of one of my huge stilettos; I couldn't even pace around angrily--my fiery mass of fury had to be tightly contained in my tiny little body. It was painful.
My mom returned from the vehicle. "The driver said that the limo we wanted wasn't available, so we were 'upgraded.'" Upgraded? If you call switching from champagne to grape Kool-Aid mixed with Snooki's vomit an "upgrade," then yes, our limo situation was seriously ameliorated. "But she called the limo company and they said they would send a different limo to pick you guys up from dinner. So don't worry, you only have to take this to the restaurant!"
Okay, fine. After all, what were the chances that we'd be seeing anyone we knew (or at least cared that we knew) at this uppity cold-soup establishment? And, really, it's not like we had much of a choice in the matter. We had collectively paid over a thousand dollars for this evening's limo experience, and we weren't about to let that get wasted.
We boarded the funhouse-on-wheels and took our seats. The stench was almost unbearable; it smelled like a hobo had been sleeping in there after swimming laps through the garbage dump and bathing in a sewer--which, given the current sketchy actions (and the Google search: page 11) of the limo company, was entirely plausible. There were also several mysterious white stains on the seats and windows--and when I say "mysterious," I mean we knew exactly what they were, but couldn't allow ourselves to face that unsanitary reality. Just sitting in that germ-vacation-oasis for the five minute ride to the restaurant made me feel like I needed to shower ten times a day for the next week. Thank God we only have to stand this for a short amount of time, I kept thinking to myself.
We entered the restaurant and announced our arrival to the chuckling hostesses. Clearly they had witnessed us roll up in our bright pink panzer, and clearly this is not the kind of behavior their usual clientele participated in. We ignored them.
We shared a delicious meal, and our waiter was actually secretly really chill behind his snooty veneer (but, I mean, the guy's gotta get tips somehow, right?) As we were nearing the end of our meal, we sent one of the guys out the back door to check and see if our limo was there. Because we had arrived a bit behind schedule, we were running a little late leaving and wanted to give the driver a heads up. The waiter had mixed up all of our checks--and even given us someone's from another table entirely--so we were sorting them out when our friend re-entered the restaurant and hesitantly approached our table. Since we were making a commotion out of swapping receipts and arguing over who got what and counting money, it took us a minute or two to notice him standing there, looking sheepish. When he finally caught our attention, our table got hushed.
"Was our limo out there?"
"Uh . . . yeah."
"Did you tell the driver we were running late?"
"Uh-huh."
"And he said it was okay?"
"Mmhmm."
We weren't really sure what his problem was, but we finished paying our checks and leaving tips before we rose to accompany him outside. When we exited the restaurant, we saw two vehicles parked on the street: one was a black Town Car stretch limo, and one looked like a really, really big white van (what I like to refer to as a "rapist van," fully-loaded with candy in the back and driven by a guy with three teeth who's looking for his lost puppy.) "The black one's ours, right?" I asked, starting my treacherous stiletto journey in that direction.
"Uh . . . no . . . That white van thing . . . That's ours."
We all looked at him quizzically.
"You're joking, right? Dude, that's not funny. Let's go." I continued walking toward the black Town Car.
"Um, no, I'm really not kidding. The white one's ours."
I came to a halt and glared in the direction of the big white van. Sure enough, on the side of the vehicle, the big cursive words "Community and Aztec Limousine Service" could be discerned.
What. The. Hell.
I started to enter another bout of hysteria, but the driver wasn't too happy that we were late, and I wasn't about to deal with him, so we boarded the Super Kidnapper 5000--only to find a nice, shiny stripper pole adorning the center of the automobile. I immediately dialed my mother. "MOM . . . VAN . . . PARTY BUS . . . STRIPPER POLE." I couldn't even speak in coherent sentences; I was pretty sure I was foaming at the mouth; and, like a bad horror movie, everything in my vision was blood red. Everyone else seemed to enjoy the fact that we were riding in a mobile stripper bar, but I could not be amused. My mom was equally as infuriated, and she told me she was going to call the limo company and sort this whole thing out. "Nothing like that is going to pick you up from the prom, I promise," she said to me.
I looked at the time on my phone. Well, it was thirty minutes past the time that the prom was supposed to start, so at least there wouldn't be huge crowds of people lingering outside the venue to witness our arrival in this Jenna Jameson on wheels (who am I kidding? Jenna Jameson is way more sophisticated than that thing. It was more like Ron Jeremy on wheels). I attempted to joke and laugh with my friends, one of whom tried to do a dance around the stripper pole, failing miserably and falling into several people's laps. It was kind of a little bit funny.
That is, until we arrived at prom and were helped out of that stupid jalopy by our vice principal. And it was very clear that he was judging us, hardcore. To make matters worse, there were roughly two hundred people outside of the building waiting to get into prom, and they all stopped and stared at us, snickering and pointing. I kept waiting for Ty Pennington (dressed like a cholo) to pop out and yell "Yo, move dat bus!" I was mortified.
Prom itself was really pretty lame. There were some yummy sweets and a couple of chocolate fountains, but the deejay only played super-thug-life rap that you couldn't really dance to, and grinding is something I have never had any desire to partake in--you look like you're packed too closely on a subway and the only thing you have to hold onto for balance is someone else's pelvis. In case you've never had Georgia Ringle teach you sex ed: if you want to have sex, you should probably do it with your clothes off, and, unless you're pursuing an amateur porn career, you probably shouldn't do it in public. We basically just kind of stood around at the edge of the dance floor, making our own fun, as we always do--Posse style.
Finally, we made the joint decision that it was time to leave, putting an end to our misery.
After searching frantically for our shoes in the coat check room--which was about as organized as the Tasmanian Devil's sock drawer--we were all so ready to get back to Megan's so we could change and head to IHOP for some post-prom pancakes. I could almost taste the syrupy goodness already.
We evacuated the venue and began searching for our limo--a difficult task considering the high volume of limos parked outside. It was an especially impossible feat considering we had no idea what form our pick-up limo might take--it was really just a guessing game. Essentially, it was like searching the Room of Requirement for something but not knowing what it is you're looking for (I mean, at least Harry knew he needed a tiara, and luckily no toddler-pageant-princess jumped him for it--except Draco, but he didn't succeed). We walked up and down Limo Avenue on our aching feet several times, never spotting our limo.
After about twenty minutes, most of the limos had left the premises, and we still couldn't find ours. I called my mom once again, at this point too tired and fed up to be all that angry, and she called the limo company who said the driver was already there. Of course. A not-so-friendly man came up to us and asked us if we were the Noah party, and how could we have kept him waiting so long, and we really needed to go. I wanted to cry, but, seeing as I only expel my tears for truly worthy occasions such as the midnight release of the fourth book in the Twlight series, I refrained. We boarded the vehicle he ushered us to, a big black GMC Topkick (basically an ignorant, beer-bellied, WWF fan in automobile form), barely even having enough energy to comment upon its anti-classiness (or should I say "classy" with a "k"?)
The rest of the evening was enjoyable enough. Instead of IHOP, which was busier than a Ben and Jerry's on Free Cone Day (or, similarly for those without a B&J nearby, busier than a Milk, Bread, and Eggs store when there is a 20% chance of snow in Louisville), we ended up at Waffle House, (or, more appropriately termed, a "WaHo") which just perpetuated the level of chic attained by our evening. Then we went back to Caroline's and, instead of getting crunk and playing flip cup until blackout like most of our classmates, we played Apples to Apples until the wee hours of the morning. It was beautiful.
We attempted to get a refund from the Community and Aztec Limousine Service for ruining the most important evening of our young high-school lives, but they gave my mother some serious Bon Qui Qui attitude and, according to some bogus contract we signed, we had no right to complain. If only we had looked at the Google Places profile for their company, we would have seen the warnings to "Beware" and "NEVER EVER EVER use this limo service," and especially how they were the "WORST PART of my wedding." But, alas, now we know, and we can go leave one of those cautionary notes ourselves. Generally speaking, the evening was enjoyable; but it will forever be known as the Night of the Pepto Bismol-mobile. See picture below. Then imagine me in it. With an angry face. (*Note: jacuzzi was not active at time of debacle)
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