Reason #15...

I (stupidly) volunteered to be Junior Class sponsor (in addition to Bat Girls' sponsor) last year in hopes of securing my job. Well, we all know how that played out...but now, prom approaches. Last week I dealt with the horror that is high school research papers and a horrible stomach flu. Those things seem tame compared to our prom run-up thus far. For the past couple of months, my cohort and I have been preparing for prom. Ordering decorations and favors. Running the elections and voting for prom court. You get the idea - High School Nightmare: The Movie.

My partner in all this is affectionately known to the cyber-world as "Kis" and to maintain her anonymity, I will continue to use this moniker. She has been busting her butt over the past 2 weeks - 3 months to be honest - to get everything ready. Our prom theme is "Wonderland" as in Alice in Wonderland which sounds great and exciting and creative. Except that there are NO good decorations to be had in any of the prom "catalogs". Because of Kis's creativity, we had lots of good ideas and a-shopping we did go over SB to thrift shops and antique stores to stock up on our home-grown ideas for decorations. Once we squared those original ideas away, we decided to tackle the mass-produced decorations available to us in the catalogs.

The "kits" (the only 2 available to go with our theme) we purchased from aforementioned catalogs provide us with a quaint "Queen of Hearts Gate" and oversized "Wonderland environment features". The directions and the "supplies" left a few things to be desired.

1-Everything is made out of cardboard or plexi-plastic. All the color comes off on clothes and hands.
2-There is an overabundant, and dare I say needless and tacky, use of glitter.
3-We were given 2 sets of large pieces when we needed 1 large set and 1 small set. We had to "create" the small set, requiring the use of a protractor, Exacto knives and very large rulers. (You all know me, right?)
4-One of the props requires sandbags (not included) - that's right, you heard me - sandbags. Which coincidentally, Andy and I happen to OWN due to our neighborhood's propensity for flooding, but that's another post.
5-Three strands of twinkle lights for the GIANT mushrooms did not work. (Twisted Christmas album flashbacks, anyone?)
6-The author of the directions confused concave and convex causing a misapplication of spray adhesive of gargantuan proportions. It was, sadly, uncorrectable.
7-ALL pieces require hot glue. ALL. They gave us exactly half the amount of glue sticks needed to make these GIANT flowers and mushrooms.
8-All electrical cords for light fixtures are exactly 2 and 1/2 feet long which will reach approximately NONE of the outlets in our venue requiring us to spend an obscene amount of money on extension cords and glue sticks.
9-Once assembled, all GIANT flowers and mushrooms, in addition to the 9 foot tall "gate" that looked like a picket fence in the catalog, will NOT fit into the regular elevator, the service elevator or the stairwell at the venue. We will be requesting campus security to open the General Admission gate to the stadium so we can carry the props up the SPECTATOR RAMPS in order to the get it all into the ballroom.

Take a moment, let it all process...call me with comments.