Prom crazy!

This year my little brother Terry will be attending prom with his lovely date Stephanie. I was very lucky to be the photographer at this event, which gave me ample opportunities to embarrass the little Alletto boy. Although I had my laugh tonight, I'm sure there have been many more chuckles at the cheesy grins I had on my face for my prom moments in years past. Few people know this, but I have become a prom expert as I have been seen in that atmosphere five times in my life. When I mentioned that today to Stephanie's mom, she almost went in shock trying to fit her mind around it. So I will lay it out for you so you know the story of my proms.

1) This prom took place as I was a sophomore in high school. Our school doesn't allow sophomores to go to prom unless they have an upperclassman as their date, so I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to be attending this event. Our family had been friends with another family a street down from our home ever since we moved to Colorado and they had a girl that was two years older than me. She was good friends with my older sister, so they would talk often with each other about what is going on and who they are dating. I was talking with my sister and she had told me of Heather's (the girl that is two years older than me) fear of not getting asked to her senior prom. As the Prom grew near, the individual that she was very much hoping would ask her picked another girl instead. I felt so bad for her that I decided to do something about it. I couldn't let her not have a date to prom for her senior year, so I went to the store and bought a bag of star bursts, put them in a bag and took one out. I wrote my name on one of the flaps and placed it back in the bag. On the outside of the bag, I wrote "my stars would burst if you would go to prom with me, search the wrappers to find out who I am." We had a great time together at the dance and I was very happy to at least try to make her senior prom a little more memorable than what it would have been. Outcome = good

2) This prom was my junior year and I had been pursuing another senior by the name of Jen. She was big into the equestrian scene, so I figured that I needed to do something with a horse. I went to the dollar store and purchased a pinata in the shape of a horse and filled it with candy and a note. I don't know what it said, but it had my name on it and that was the important part. So she ended up breaking it and finding my name. The problem with this date was me trying to make myself look really good so Jen would like me. I was so worried about looking good that I was just stupid... So the date ended with no sparks flying. Not a very memorable prom night.

3) I had a good friend that moved to Boston after her sophomore year and she wasn't fitting in too well. She called me up and invited me to fly out to Massachusetts to go with her. Naturally, I said yes to a great opportunity like that! So her parents flew me out there and I went to prom with her. I actually had a blast with her out there because I didn't really feel any pressure to impress her. We went to a Red Sox game and I went to school with her one of the days. It was just a fun time hanging out at her home and doing something completely different than what I have ever done before. This is also the first time I ever heard the song "pour some sugar on me" by Def Leppard. I was blown away by how popular it was in her school. When it played during the dance, everyone went bonkers! This prom was a success

4) It was my senior year and again I had been semi-dating a girl named Cara towards the end of the year. This was actually a very interesting situation because we were in the same sixth grade class and I had a HUGE crush on her, but she thought I was a major loser. When I had my big crush on her, I was watching saved by the bell and one of the characters gave another one a gold fish as a way of asking her to be his girlfriend. I though that was a genius move, so I attempted the same thing to woo her into liking me. I purchased two feeder gold fish from the pet store, but since I didn't have a fish tank, I put them in a can that my mom would use for canning tomatoes. Very high class, I know... She ended up flushing the fish down the toilet. It broke my heart, but that is another story. So once again, I was trying way to hard to get her to like me and it just didn't work and that prom was another flop.

5) This last one was another attempt to help a girl have a good prom. Her name is Jessica and I got a call to go with her the day before her prom. Her aunt was in my ward and apparently what happened was, her jerk boy friend didn't ask her to prom, but asked some other girl! I guess that was one way of saying that he didn't want to date her anymore? So I got the call to go with her and I didn't have anything going on that weekend, so I drove with her aunt up to Loveland and had a pretty good night with her. I was pretty worried about what it would be like, but it actually turned out to be very fun. Really, I was just being used for revenge. I'm OK with that. My final prom was good!

Now that I am writing this stuff down, I need to learn not to try to impress girls because it doesn't turn out too well. If I would just be normal and have a good time with out trying to impress the girl, things go much better! I just don't learn... Maybe the future will tell a different story.