Saturday, March 17, 2012

PMA, pliers, and ghetto dancing the night away.

have you ever zipped your prom dress with a pair of pliers?

that depends on if you've ever had a prom dress.

i happen to have one prom dress at school, and one at home. luckily, my freshman year of high school when i got asked to go to prom three days before prom, i was still short enough to fit into my cousin rachel's dress.

and then suddenly i was six inches taller than any woman had ever been in my family and i had to go out and buy my own prom dresses.

but i get back to my original question: have you ever zipped up your prom dress with a pair of pliers?

i hope to goodness that your answer is no.

so my tale starts out with me lying in the middle of the quad with my friend lisa on a towel listening to awkward nineties music. i'm not sure why, but it does. i just feel like this story starts there. and it's just kind of fun to say that i spent yesterday afternoon laying out in shorts and a tank top.

the REAL story starts when jacob (the boyfriend not the best friend) joined phi mu alpha, better known as PMA, the music fraternity on campus. here are some things about the fraternity that my brother is in, and PMA, so you can understand a little bit about how PMA works.

ZETA, THE FRATERNITY OF MY BROTHER.

1. yes. after a party, they did wake up to find a pine tree in their shower. and it was on texts from last night.
2. pledging is hazing. they say that it's not. but it is.
3. my car is in serious danger of being parked in their parking lot.
4. their lawn popped my tire. too much broken glass. refer to number three on this handy dandy list.
5. they have a balloon party. a balloon party. (and yes, i've been to one of them.)

PMA, THE FRATERNITY OF MY BOYFRIEND.

1. they don't have parties.
2. nearly every brother plays some sort of instrument and almost all of them grow up to be teachers. music teachers.
3. there is a piano in their kitchen. my friend brendan keeps it in tune.
4. they do not wake up to pine trees in their showers. they do not haze.
5. mr. rogers was in PMA. you know, like mr. roger's neighborhood. he's pretty cool.

PMA is not your average fraternity, stereotypical or otherwise.

last night was their formal.

so naturally, jacob put on his salvation army tuxedo pants, a black shirt and a red tie, and then we went back to my room, where i commenced to shower and put on my make up in a tank top and my cross country shorts from sixth grade that i can still squeeze into. i do not wear make up. it took me a decent amount of time to get dolled up for this event that was in mt. pleasant. we would realize later that we left the directions to the venue in jacob's room.

to make sure that i absolutely had to wear my floor length prom gown, i didn't shave my legs. this later might've turned out to have been a bad idea.

when my make up was on and my hurrs wuz did, it was now time for me to put on my plum colored mermaid style ball gown that i had worn to senior prom. it was a good deal; it was two seasons too late, had a jank zipper, and was only forty-five dollars. i also happened to look good in it, which was a plus.

so i wiggle into the dress, zip it up as far as i can, and call jacob over so he can finish zipping me.

damn zipper gets stuck.

scroll back to the front of this blog post and pertinent question: have YOU zipped your prom dress with a pair of pliers?

oh, i have. and so has jacob.

that damn zipper was stuck about two inches from maximum zipping capacity (i mean the top of my dress, ahem) and then it would not budge. jacob yanked and yanked and i stood in front of my mirror, self-consciously holding up my boobs even though the dress was sufficently holding them up anyway, and i looked at my reflection and thought about how maybe i should wear make up every day like normal girls. then i remembered that i'm not like normal girls, and i forgot the idea as jacob yanked and yanked and nearly made me fall over.

jacob: i need pliers.
me: i swear to god if you rip my dress--
jacob: you have a back up dress!
me: no. i didn't shave. i need a long dress.
jacob: of course you didn't shave.

ladies. shaving. you understand.

so jacob yanked on my dress with pliers. it did not budge.

(i would like to point out at this moment that the usage of pliers and fingers in trying to get my zipper unstuck has given jacob three blisters on his hands.)

so i kicked him out of my closet, turned my dress completely around, and struggled with the zippper while wearing it backwards. no luck. there was something going on with the fabric in this teeny tiny part of the zipper track. and i couldn't get it while wearing the dress.

and this, ladies and gentleman, is where i felt like a superhero. i got OUT of the dress, spent ten minutes wiggling the zipper, got it to FINALLY zip up all the way, and managed to squeeze into my prom dress with it zipped. it did not rip going over my hips. and i made a serious of high-pitched wheezing noises while jumping up and down to accomplish this earth-shattering feat.

time elapsed since first putting on the dress: thirty minutes.

now skipping to the part where we actually get to formal after taking awkward pictures...

the food was excellent. i was disappointed that the manicotti had chicken, but a vegetarian can't have everything in life. i was very excited to see my former roommate mariah invited by ryan. i realized i didn't know half of the brothers there, or their dates, but hey, i knew a few of them, and of course, i was with jacob.

after dinner, the dancing starting.

first song of choice: backstreet boys, backstreet's back (all right!).

no, PMA is not a normal fraternity.

let me remind you that i am a twenty year old white girl that is five foot nine and reasonably lanky. i cannot walk in high heels, and i break a bone almost every year.

let me assure you of this: i can ghetto dance.

and last night, i ghetto danced.

of coures, i also awkwardly slow danced in which jacob and i traded gender roles and he put his arms around my neck and i had a fun time with my hands on his hips, and i spent a decent amount of time jumping around excitedly and just generally being an awkward hispter dancer. upon rereading this paragraph, i have used awkward a decent amount, and i realize that that's the best word.

i. am. awkward.

to make this decently long story short, i had a blast dancing with my friends and just letting loose. jacob's brothers are absolutely amazing, and everybody was looking extra snazzy. it was like a small concentrated prom with only people that i liked. and because it's PMA, not a single person had anything hanging out that shouldn't have been hanging out. (i cannot say the same thing for zeta's formal, which i attended last year. it was basically the brothers and their girlfriends wearing pretty dresses and getting wasted in the basement of the house.)

we'll see how my sorority formal goes in two weeks.

and yes, i will be wearing the same dress, unless my mother can mail me the white monstrosity of a prom dress that i wore my junior year of high school. pretty sure that dress is ten pounds.

and now, some pictures for your general entertainment. and no, there are no pictures of the pliers that were used to help zip up my dress. i apologize.

feelin' snazzy. :)
it's not an event unless we take
a picture like this.

former roommates. :)

2 comments:

  1. This post made me laugh way too loudly, and that caused my aunt to give me an odd look as she walked by, but I continued laughing anyway. Glad you had a good time!

    ReplyDelete