Will Dad Ever Be Ready for the Prom?
It’s 10 hours till prom, and her mother and I are discussing the prospects of attaching a LoJack sensor to our daughter’s pretty prom ankle.
You know, LoJack, those anti-theft tracking devices. People put them on their BMWs. Why not on their teenage daughters? PromJack--an ankle bracelet studded with cubic zirconium.
“I could wrestle her to the ground,” I tell my wife, “and you could snap the sensor to her ankle.”
We end up rejecting the idea because we’re not sure I could wrestle my lovely and patient older daughter to the ground. She’s 17 and nimble as a racehorse.
I’d wind up chasing her around the frontyard, with her laughing and trotting at half speed while I lunged for her feet. I’d hurt myself on a sprinkler head, and the neighbors would have another story to tell. The day Prom Dad got 28 stitches in his knee.
“Maybe we’ll skip the ankle bracelet,” I tell my wife.
“So what’ll we do?”
“Helicopter surveillance,” I say.
“Good thinking.”
Helicopters are easily available these days. My friend Michael says he could get us one for $575 an hour, a Bell Jet Ranger with the TV platform.
I’ll hover over the hotel while the kids dine and dance, then track them when they leave.
Helicopters are so common in Los Angeles, the kids will never notice. They’ll assume it’s just another breaking celebrity murder and continue on with their evening.
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It’s six hours till prom and our lovely daughter is off to get her nails done. Just what L.A. needs--more beautiful hands and feet.
Here we are in prom season and there is an outbreak of beautiful people. First, they get their nails done. Then their hair. Then their makeup.
When my daughter speaks to me, it’s almost always to ask for another check. She and her mother have worked out a plan where we pay almost all her prom expenses and our older daughter pays for almost none of them.
“That’s fine with me,” I say. “She can pay for college.”
“Today is not the day to argue,” my wife says.
“How about tomorrow then?” I ask. “Can we argue tomorrow?”
“Give her the check,” her mother says.
There are times when a dad just needs to stand back and shut up. A prom is maybe one of those times. Dads become scenery at times like these. We become a birdhouse in the background.
“Thanks Daddy,” my lovely and patient older daughter says, then launches into a long explanation of her next beauty procedure.
She speaks quickly, my daughter, like a Dizzy Gillespie trumpet solo, flurries of 16th notes splayed over several octaves, some of the notes garbled, others brilliant.
I don’t understand such solos. Mostly, I just nod and hand over the checks.
“Nice job,” my wife says as I give my daughter more money.
“Tomorrow, we talk,” I say.
“Right,” my wife says.
Three hours till prom and I follow my daughter to drop off her car at the expensive hotel, where they have arranged a post-prom party.
There will be a bungalow, with chips and soft drinks. Just to make sure the drinks stay soft and the prom dresses stay on, one of the mothers will be positioned in clear sight nearby.
“That’s smart,” I tell my wife when I hear the plan.
“I think so too,” she says.
“And I can shine a spotlight,” I say.
“What are you talking about?”
“From the helicopter,” I say.
One hour till prom, and we’re standing around with other parents in someone’s nice frontyard, waiting to take pictures of the beautiful people before the limo arrives.
The moms hop here and there with cameras as the Prom Dads sort of mill around in the background, hands thrust deep in their empty pockets.
Our lovely and patient older daughter, having dressed at a friend’s house, is late for pictures. I stand there like a dork, holding her corsage.
“Hey, that must be the limo,” someone says.
In the street, the Queen Mary has arrived, a white 40-foot Lincoln, slurping $2-a-gallon gasoline. It would be cheaper to run the engine on champagne.
“Looks like it’d snap in half,” says one of the other Prom Dads, studying the long wheelbase.
“Must have an I-beam running down the middle,” I say.
Finally, our daughter arrives, dazzling as always. She was dazzling when she was born and she is dazzling now, smelling of talc and a few other things I can’t really identify. Too much junk in the air. Perfume. Limo fumes. Money.
“When do I give her away?” I ask my wife.
“It’s a prom, not a wedding,” she tells me.
OK, now I’ve got that straight. Little by little, I learn about prom.
“Here, give me the camera,” my wife says.
I am amazed at how beautiful these kids are. They look the way movie stars strive to look--lean as tulips, hair shimmering, skin lustrous. Frankly, they look better than movie stars.
One of the girls, a striking blond, perfect and fresh as a raindrop on a leaf, kneels down to have a picture taken with a little girl, who is dressed for the event in her Snow White costume.
It is one of those poignant, pre-prom moments. The wide-eyed 5-year-old and the wide-eyed 17-year-old. The before-and-after of a parent’s life. Quick, shoot me before I melt.
“Hey, everybody in the car!” someone yells.
“OK,” I say.
“Not you,” my wife says.
And 18 kids climb aboard the Queen Mary. After a few moments, the limo pulls away--18 kids buffed and polished, with everything their parents ever taught them swirling somewhere in their heads. Was it enough? Will they remember?
Probably, we’ll never know.
Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.
