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.
This was the third year I helped with valet parking along with some of the other teachers.
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 4, 2015 at 7:46 am
What an adventure for you… or not. Did you update your tetanus shots before swimming in this brine of germs?
May 4, 2015 at 12:57 pm
When you first start teaching they warn you that you’re going to be sick for the entire year. Going to work in a school is like endurance training for your immune system.
May 4, 2015 at 8:21 am
That sounds like it would be a lot of fun…for one night. I always think you can tell a lot about a person by how they keep their car. It seems you pretty much nailed all of them.
May 4, 2015 at 12:58 pm
Yeah, I don’t know how long it would be fun. My grandfather and uncle & aunt all parked cars at the Del Mar racetrack, but I think that’d be different, because you’d see some seriously high-end cars there… and then back them into a parking space at 60mph.
May 4, 2015 at 8:31 am
I was homeschooled, so I never got to experience the joys of prom, not to mention valet parking. Apparently I missed a lot.
May 4, 2015 at 1:00 pm
Prom is a really important moment in a person’s life, because it really helps you learn about being disappointed in something.
May 4, 2015 at 9:34 am
“The moped.”
Nice.
May 4, 2015 at 10:10 am
We had a bona fide BUS take us to prom– not a full-sized bus, but the community shuttle style of bus. And it was OURS for the night. With a driver and everything! Everyone else in the whole school rented limos for the evening, and there was mass confusion as hundreds of bedazzled people tried to figure out which black stretch limo was ‘theirs’ after the dinner ended and before the offsite after party began. Not us, man. The 8 of us saw our AWESOME SHUTTLE BUS and were like ‘Yo! That’s ours!’ We were soooooo cool! 😉
May 4, 2015 at 2:37 pm
Every year a group of students rent a trolley- bus, which seems pretty cool; but I have to say that an actual shuttle bus seems strangely fantastic.
May 4, 2015 at 11:04 am
Ha! Love this – I agree they should be driving the heaps – makes for better memories
May 4, 2015 at 2:38 pm
Exactly. What’s the fun in reminiscing with friends over the functional, conventional car you used to drive? I had a car in high school for a while that you had to run the heat all the time or the engine would overheat. Hundred degrees outside? Too bad, cranking the heat.
May 4, 2015 at 3:36 pm
I think men reminisce more about their cars than women do – I had a Honda Accord that my dad kept in pretty good shape for me, but the boys inevitably drove beaters for some reason!
May 4, 2015 at 11:49 am
Ah, prom. My daughter’s prom is this weekend, but there’s also an anime convention this weekend. Guess which one she’s going to?
(If you guessed prom, you would be wrong)
May 4, 2015 at 2:39 pm
We’ll, it’s almost certainly a better bet for creating lasting memories. Cheaper, too.
May 4, 2015 at 2:46 pm
Word.
May 4, 2015 at 1:28 pm
How fun for you. Did you get any tips? Some of the cars the kids are driving these days. It must be nice!
May 4, 2015 at 2:39 pm
Yes, but all the tips were given as donations. The whole thing is a fund-raiser for the debate team.
May 4, 2015 at 3:02 pm
Excellent.
May 4, 2015 at 3:09 pm
Very appropriately for a teacher, you’re grading not just the students’ classes, but also their cars.
May 5, 2015 at 1:36 pm
I would also like to be able to assign a grade to their “dancing.”
(Yes, I realize that remark makes me, officially, a grumpy old man)
May 5, 2015 at 2:54 pm
Either a grumpy old man or a teenager.
May 4, 2015 at 7:04 pm
How funny! How fun! You get to do the coolest things!
May 5, 2015 at 1:37 pm
Hm… I honestly can’t tell if that’s sarcasm. It was a lot of fun, but I’d never have thought of being a valet at a high school prom as cool. Well, if you’re serious: thanks! It was a good time. If you’re sarcastic: Sheesh, harsh.
May 5, 2015 at 2:02 pm
Oh, yes I’m serious! I taught twenty-seven years and thoroughly enjoyed myself, especially when we did extracurricular “stuff” like spend the day at the zoo without the principal knowing I’d gotten parents’ permission to do so.
May 5, 2015 at 6:01 am
I had one of the “shambling heaps of squeals and rust.” The turn signals were broken, the trunk was rusted so badly that I didn’t need to use the key to open it. If I rolled the window down (manually, mind you), I couldn’t roll it up again without using my hands to guide the window back up. Good times!
I hope you valet parked one of those. 🙂
May 7, 2015 at 2:29 pm
Several, actually. The great thing is you don’t have to worry about grinding the gears, or dinging the bumper. Everything’s been long-since ground & dinged.
May 5, 2015 at 7:07 am
At my son’s prom, someone arrived with his date on a tractor.
My son, meanwhile, drove his girlfriend’s grandfather’s convertible. He brought a change of underwear just in case.
May 5, 2015 at 1:39 pm
Wow, they tractor couple must have had to start driving toward the prom at about 3:00 in the afternoon.
May 5, 2015 at 3:50 pm
All about proximity.
May 5, 2015 at 9:34 am
So agree on the rust-bucket being the appropriate vehicle for a kid.
The tiny college I attended freshman year had a 2 year program in car dealership management. The parking lot looked like a showroom with row after row of brand-new Vettes and Camaros that Daddy let the kids drive . Snot-nosed, entitled a-holes.
Not that car-less me was jealous at all. As if.
May 5, 2015 at 1:41 pm
I think I’d be jealous of people with nice cars if they didn’t think it somehow reflected their superiority. Something about that seems so gross and sad that it wouldn’t be worth the trade.
May 6, 2015 at 1:11 pm
The car I took to my senior prom was my Mom’s SUV. With her driving. I was 18 and still didn’t have my driver’s license because I never went anywhere.
So my mom drove me to pick up the girl I liked and then drove her back home after the prom was over.
Oh, and we got there two hours late, missed dinner, and spent the whole night avoiding eye contact.
It went better than expected.
May 7, 2015 at 2:27 pm
Yeah, it’s truly a night of magical romance, isn’t it?
May 7, 2015 at 6:12 am
Picked up my date for the prom in a orange and tan Volkswagen van (it would be considered a mini van now). She was so mad, but then we hopped in my buddies borrowed Cadillac, things got better.
May 7, 2015 at 2:27 pm
See, I’d have been more excited for the VW van.
October 23, 2015 at 11:17 am
No horse pulled carriages?
November 10, 2015 at 11:47 am
Hm… it’s actually a little surprising there weren’t!