Oh, hahahahaha. Yes. This will distract nicely from your crippling insecurities about your appearance. Well played, sir.
For the school where I work, this past weekend was prom – that magical night when a girl’s dreams come true. Assuming her dreams involve trying to walk in 5-inch heels, not eating your expensive dinner because the dress is too tight, and then listening to deafening music with a guy who thinks he’s the first one to come up with the idea of wearing a “funny” tuxedo.
My wife and I, as part of a fund-raising effort, ran valet parking with some of the other teachers. It was insane, exhausting, and a lot of fun.
About as hard to park as you’d expect. Maybe a little harder.
Some kids were barely holding it together in terms of how to be “formal” and navigating valet parking was just too much. Some pulled up, saw that teachers would be in their car and suddenly decided – perhaps to the sound of clinking bottles and lingering puffs of smoke – that, you know, maybe I’ll just park this baby myself. But a lot of kids used the service. I parked a huge range of cars from Mini-Coopers to giant, jacked-up trucks with foghorns.
They basically broke down like this:
Shambling Heaps Of Squeals And Rust That Shouldn’t Be On The Road. You know exactly the cars I mean. Gauges don’t work. The many “something’s wrong” lights glaring like a Vegas casino. Belts screeching. Seats look like they have mice living in them. These were my favorites. These are the cars high-schoolers should be driving.
Mom Let Me Borrow The Good Car. This is the safe car – also fairly clean. Sensible; there’s probably a door on it that opens automatically. There’s a sticker on the back the kid thinks is soooo uncool. No one in the prom party is allowed to eat or drink anything in this car, you guys; seriously, my mom will, like, totally freak.
Hm, um, I’m pretty sure you were low on gas when you dropped it off. Also, I think you’d already gotten those speeding tickets. Heh.
Hey, Uncle Robbie, Don’t You Have A ___________? The cool car. Maybe it’s a ’73 Camaro, maybe it’s a Hummer – but it’s interesting. Your valet may wish to take this one for a little spin while you’re dancing the night away.
Let’s Play Classy! The other borrowed or rented car – this one’s the Audi, or the BMW convertible that’s totally wasted on the kids. Also, the gas gauges are consistently on empty because, oh you’ll borrow the expensive car, but you’re not shelling out for gas! Come on!
I Am, In Fact, A Rich Little Puke. The ridiculously nice car that’s littered with wrappers, clothes and textbooks and smells bad because it’s totally not even the one I wanted. I asked for a black Lexus and I got a silver Audi; like, are you kidding me? I have the meanest parents.
The Moped. Nice.
The Byronic Man 
May 9, 2013 at 4:35 am
Nice to see some things have not changed on Planet Teen.
My ride back when: 1968 Mustang, self-restored. I think I cover at least two of your categories…
May 9, 2013 at 1:09 pm
My best friend in high school (well, and still one of my best friends) had, I think, a ’67 Mustang – everything stock. The paint job cost more than my entire car.
Then he had it lowered.
I know.
May 9, 2013 at 1:31 pm
Dumb. Ass. Please slap him for me.
May 9, 2013 at 2:04 pm
Oh, he’s slapped himself many many times over it.
May 9, 2013 at 2:04 pm
Excellent.
May 9, 2013 at 4:49 am
Hehe u ever watch The Middle? Your first car descriptor reminded me of Axl’s car… if you have seen The Middle (the episodes where he has a car, anyway) you will instantly relate.
May 9, 2013 at 1:10 pm
I haven’t – I’ll look for it!
May 9, 2013 at 4:01 pm
It’s a great little sitcom about a family – mum, dad and three kids, living in the middle (middle of the USA I’m presuming). It’s a fun sitcom. Brick, the youngest, is really brainy and probably has aspergers/autism to a slight degree. Sue, middle child, is a failure at everything except being nice and is highly emotional. Axl is the oldest child and is your typical teen, sullen, surly, but nice when it counts. Mike (dad) hates to show his emotions but is really sweet, and Frankie (mum) is the total opposite of Mike. A great show.
May 9, 2013 at 4:50 am
I’m now 100% convinced you wore something ridiculous to prom.
“…glaring like a Vegas casino” – love that!
May 9, 2013 at 1:10 pm
I’m sure Hyperbole And A Half wore a funnier outfit to prom.
(note to anyone else: pardon the inside joke)
May 9, 2013 at 1:38 pm
Ah hah! So you admit you wore something ridiculous.
(Good job with the comments.)
May 9, 2013 at 2:03 pm
Actually I never did. If we were playing “stupid, insecure crap that teenage boys do” Bingo I’d definitely win, but I wouldn’t get that square. I was juuuuuust barely aware enough of my date to at least dress for her evening.
May 9, 2013 at 5:10 pm
How disappointing!
P.S. – You should put a bumper sticker widget over there on the right that says, “My other blog is Hyperbole and a Half.”
May 9, 2013 at 4:56 am
The ingratitude of the rich, little puke was spot on.
May 9, 2013 at 4:57 am
And that sentence makes little sense. What I meant to say is you captured the rich little puke beautifully.
May 9, 2013 at 1:11 pm
I got you. And thanks.
May 9, 2013 at 5:05 am
You must have had a lot of fun on valet duty. It seems that things have changed little since my days in high school, many MANY years ago. The same types of cars (vehicles) are still turning up at proms as were showing up at proms in my day, apart from limos which we didn’t have. We certainly did have the ones with all the warning lights on. If I recall, I went to one prom in such a car. I also went in a mom-and-dad car that was not littered in on pain of death. Good times.
May 9, 2013 at 1:12 pm
The only thing that seems to be different than I remember is fewer cars in the middle – lots of junkers, lots of high end – not a huge quantity in between. That can’t be good.
May 9, 2013 at 5:09 am
Makes me want to get dressed up, resurrect my ’75 Maverick, and act superior to a valet at a 5 star establishment.
May 9, 2013 at 1:12 pm
Don’t forget to leave a crappy tip because the waiter didn’t bring your 4th water as quickly as you’d have liked.
May 9, 2013 at 2:22 pm
I’m not really hip to poor etiquette… besides doing what a friend of mine always does and orders every damn item specially prepared with all accoutrements “on the side,” what else can I do?
May 9, 2013 at 5:23 am
Valet parking – what a great idea, especially if a teacher gets to park the car of a student whose summer job is valet parking! Justifiable retribution!
May 9, 2013 at 1:13 pm
A lot of students said it made the evening – so it all worked out.
May 9, 2013 at 5:31 am
Hilarious! You captured the essence of prom night perfectly. Thanks for a good laugh this morning!
May 9, 2013 at 1:13 pm
Yeah, proms will be proms, now and forever.
May 9, 2013 at 5:36 am
Kids around here rent hummer limos, or, I guess, if they are on a tight budget, just regular limos. Shizzle! I went to the prom in my boyfriend’s crap early 1960s station wagon. Hmmm, come to think of it, that station wagon came in handy after the prom, but that’s another story… 😉
May 9, 2013 at 1:13 pm
Hummer limos… I can’t see one and not shake my head.
May 11, 2013 at 6:01 am
I was just thinking how surprised I am that the majority of the kids didn’t show up in limos! My prom dates drove. One was in a Dodge Shadow. The other was an ’86 Honda Civic.I was glad not to have to drive, because my car was an ’85 Thunderbird, which seemed bad-ass, but in fact often was trying to kill me. We called it The Piece. As in… piece of shit. So the first kind of car you described? My favorite, too.
May 9, 2013 at 5:43 am
A moped? But, but . . . a dress, and heels and hair, and . . . and . . . how? How is that possible? The mind boggles.
Oh, wait. No date, right? Ahhh, got it.
You have just reminded me that I took a picture of something at my library last night that made me think of you. No, it has nothing to do with this post. I’m gonna email it to ya . . .
May 9, 2013 at 1:14 pm
I’ll look for it!
May 9, 2013 at 6:25 am
I used to drive a 1989 Mercury Couger. It was white with a black vinyl top, so it looked like a convertible but it wasn’t. The one good thing about those older cars is the plushness of the seats. I’ve never had a more comfortable car. It was perfect for prom…activities…you know, like going through the drive thru for fast food.
May 9, 2013 at 1:15 pm
I never understood faux-convertibles. “All the ugliness, none of the luxury!”
May 9, 2013 at 6:25 am
I’d have loved to have had a teacher park my old 66 Mustang. Ok now Mr. Byronic, to stop the car, you have to pump the brakes 4 times and then honk the horn and than pump the brakes slightly twice more and then hit the brake as hard as you can and pray to god it stops…you’re Catholic, right? It was a special ride for sure. God bless you for being a teacher and being active in the school after hours! Kids remember that sort of stuff and appreciate it as adults. Hopefully.
May 9, 2013 at 1:15 pm
I was braced for a few of those, but none of them turned out to be as bad as I’d hoped. The big problem was starting them up and the pedal-pumping, engine squealing, rattling, etc.
May 9, 2013 at 6:48 am
I love the ‘these are the cars high-schoolers should be driving’. Yes. You have to WORK for a better one!
May 9, 2013 at 1:16 pm
Plus you know they’re going to hit something. Might as well be something you don’t have to worry about.
May 9, 2013 at 1:53 pm
True. I crashed into a house when I was learning to drive. In my mum’s car though unfortunately…
May 9, 2013 at 6:56 am
Oh My God! This must have been a blast! Did someone really arrive in a Moped??
The year my son went to prom as a senior the popular kids from class council who warned their classmates not to drink the week before (long sentence and set-up), pre-partied. When they arrived, the police were there to inspect students before going into the dance. A couple of the kids bolted. One was taken down face first in the dirt and spent the night in jail. This was five years ago, but they all ended up being great kids!
I am sure that the Byronic-Baby will make really great choices….. at least she won’t arrive on a moped. Maybe a big Harley! 🙂
May 9, 2013 at 1:17 pm
Every single student had to pass a breathalizer to get in – they weren’t messing around.
And why do people run away from the cops? Does that ever work out? I don’t think it does.
May 9, 2013 at 7:20 am
So glad to hear that not ALL the kids rent limos!!! My kid (in 5 years or so) will either be driving a beater (currently his mom’s – my – car right now) or whatever car is Mom’s car in 2018 or 2019. And yes, it will be clean, and no, you may not eat in it 😉
May 9, 2013 at 1:18 pm
It’s funny – the limo rental almost seems trite at this point. “Oh brother, real original.”
May 9, 2013 at 7:56 am
My son whined about the cool cars friends drove in high school. He got to drive what we dubbed the POS – piece of s**t.
May 9, 2013 at 1:19 pm
That seems reasonable. I’m always amazed at the cars some high schoolers drive – it’s like parents don’t know that they don’t have to get them a nice car for it to be a safe car.
May 9, 2013 at 8:20 am
I would like the mom who wrote on her fb recently that if her son didn’t watch himself, she would be the one driving the BMW, to read this. Perhaps she’d get a clue. Never mind. If she got it, she couldn’t read it because her head is stuck so far … in the sand, yeah, in the sand, like an ostrich. That’s what I meant.
May 9, 2013 at 1:21 pm
A lot of times you can’t understand why students act the way they do… and then parents’ night rolls around…
May 9, 2013 at 1:22 pm
Indeed! Happy Teacher Appreciation Week, btw!!!
May 9, 2013 at 8:27 am
I can’t decide which image I find more amusing- someone riding to prom on a moped, or you valeting a moped.
May 9, 2013 at 1:20 pm
The moped passed on valeting. Coward.
May 9, 2013 at 1:58 pm
He just knew you’d take it joyriding while he was in the dance. You look shady like that.
May 9, 2013 at 8:30 am
I was leaving the school parking lot one day when I witnessed first-hand a girl whining to her father that she didn’t want the Mercedes he bought her for her 16th birthday. She wanted the Beamer and she couldn’t beLIEVE he could be so thoughtless.
Parents.
I hope you dressed in a “funny” valet uniform and, more importantly, that there are pictures.
May 9, 2013 at 1:23 pm
I’m sure that girl grew up to be a charming woman of depth and compassion.
May 9, 2013 at 8:51 am
You can tell you work with teens! You portrayed them to a T!!!!! Very funny.
May 9, 2013 at 1:25 pm
Yeah, I probably know their behaviors too well at this point.
May 9, 2013 at 8:51 am
How fun! I’m old enough to remember when the pastel tux with ruffled shirt was supposed to be fashion-forward, not ironic. Good times, good times.
The 16-year-old burdened with a crappy Audi is so right-on. Those little pukes make me want to….well, puke.
May 9, 2013 at 1:26 pm
Tuxedo shops keep a bunch of them in stock just so every single kid who thinks he thought of it won’t be disappointed.
May 9, 2013 at 9:52 am
My friend went in a spankin’ new cherry red Mustang to prom. I went in a 1975 Cutlass Supreme with a broken turn signal, rust patches over the wheels. But that baby comfortably sat about 8 seniors. And it was kind of funny when the cops pulled her over for being in a flashy vehicle. I sailed right through the roadblock.
May 9, 2013 at 1:27 pm
I read once about the types and colors of cars more likely to be pulled over. Red and Mustang are both at the top. I, alas, have never had a car I had to worry much about being pulled over in.
May 9, 2013 at 10:39 am
My poor son got to drive dad’s Prius. I’m sure there will be a whole chapter in his book someday about that experience.
May 9, 2013 at 1:28 pm
I’m sure he was the quietest and most economical ride at the prom – and what teen doesn’t envy that?
May 9, 2013 at 11:27 am
I was homeschooled, so I never got to experience the joys of prom. Clearly I missed out.
May 9, 2013 at 1:29 pm
Definitely. I can barely remember anything about prom, except I know I went. I definitely went.
May 9, 2013 at 1:58 pm
Prom!! I went to prom in a rented bus with a handful of friends. We thought we were SO COOL! My friend’s dad ran a shuttling company and let us borrow the bus for the evening. He even threw in a chauffeur… otherwise known as the ‘bus driver’.
One last prom story: I graduated in ’99, and whoever planned our grad ceremony thought it would be ‘cool’ to have this gigantic alien play DJ for the first song. A crappy vocal track played over the loud speakers while this alien guy mimed along to the words in exaggerated fashion. (I pity the poor sap who had to wear the alien mascot costume for this gig. So lame.) Anyway, he was miming along, telling us all to ‘countdown to the millennium!’. All of us cool teenagers were nonplussed, no doubt thinking ‘yo alien– it’s MAY. The new millennium doesn’t happen for another few months’. Regardless, the alien counted down (by himself) from 10 and then confetti fell from the ceiling to ring in the year 2000. In May 1999. Prince’s “Party Like It’s 1999” song started playing, but you could literally hear the crickets on the dance floor. It wasn’t cool. We were soooo not impressed.
Teenagers: Forever the same.
May 9, 2013 at 6:24 pm
Yes! Almost all the people at my grad (as we call “prom” in Canada) went in limos, or, the worst invention ever, limo SUVs. Barf. I couldn’t be bothered with the social politics of who to go in a limo with (or who to try to get invited in a limo with) so I drove my dad’s canary yellow Chevy II. Now that I think of it, I’m sure some teachers were jealous 😉
May 9, 2013 at 9:17 pm
I’m from Canada, too. Glad to know that somebody else says “grad” instead of “prom”. Canary yellow Chevy sounds AWESOME! 🙂
May 10, 2013 at 4:45 pm
Yay! It was awesome. Sadly, it no longer… “is.”
May 10, 2013 at 6:27 am
love the moped–though I would not have wanted to be this guy’s date
May 10, 2013 at 6:31 am
I actually drove a better car when I was in high school than I do now. My car now falls into the “Shambling Heaps Of Squeals And Rust That Shouldn’t Be On The Road” category. Oh, the shame.
May 11, 2013 at 12:26 pm
I loved it when a girl at my highschool got a brand new Corvette for her 16th birthday. Yeah, I was super happy for her as I pulled up in my old Camry that I would continue paying off on my own through college.
May 11, 2013 at 9:19 pm
I think I would have killed in my teens (early 1970s) to have been driven up in a coffee-and-cream 57 Belair, or a red-and-white Corvette of the same vintage. But in those days we didn’t have high school proms – we only imported this piece of… essentially American culture… in the last decade or so.
May 12, 2013 at 5:17 am
Well, there’s always one or two guys who decide to wear the tuxedo with a kilt – clan tartan chosen based on matching their date’s dress – even if their last name is something like LeBlanc or Kurtzweilder. So I suppose if there’s going to be Americans trying to dress like Scots, there’s got to be Scots dressing like Americans somewhere. Cosmic balance and all that.
May 12, 2013 at 6:14 am
Indeed.
May 13, 2013 at 5:14 am
I wish we had proms in Australia. We have school dances, of course, but nothing like the proms in the movies – which are all based on real life, right?
Do you all get together and dance to the ‘Hand Jive’ and then is there always someone spiking the punch? And does the girl who always gets picked on decide to use her terrible powers and lock all the doors and burn the prom down?
I bet the answer is yes to all of the above.
May 13, 2013 at 7:04 am
This was brilliant and hilarious!
May 19, 2013 at 6:02 am
You liked the scrap heap cars, but really, which one overall was the best?!
May 26, 2013 at 7:29 pm
I can’t stop laughing. Excellent!