My hairstylist could do without prom

As I was getting my hair did yesterday, the conversation turned to prom season. It's just around the corner and it signals Spring and the approach of Summer. It also means one terror-filled day for hairdressers everywhere.

Her main gripe was with the snippy little bitches who tear a page out of a magazine of a dolled up teen starlet and demand that very same hairstyle. All for 50 bucks. I can relate because I have clients demand a certain look and based on what I'm being paid, they get what I give them. It's a lot like a counterfeit Rolex. It's close but anyone who sees it knows that it's just not the same.

From hairstyles and the bitchy girls who demand that this curl go the opposite direction, we moved towards the excesses of the modern prom. From stretch limos to dresses that A.) cost what my wife's wedding dress did to B.) the skanky, too-short dresses girls wear to formal dances.

Now before you call me a codger or an angry old coot, I'm only 30 years old but just twelve or fourteen years ago when I went to my junior and senior prom, the girls weren't wearing ultra-short, hey, look at my panties-type dresses (and that's if the girls today are even bothering to wear underthings...) or at least my dates weren't.

So what has changed? Has fifteen or so years seen changes so drastic that I should just give up and admit that I am hopelessly disconnected from all things younger? And since when does prom have to be the teenage equivalent of a wedding? I know one thing, my daughter's going to pay her own way if she sees the need for a stretch limo, hundred dollar hairdo and a barely-there dress because the one difference between a wedding and prom is that very few couples have sex in the back seat of their parents' car on their wedding night. The same can not be said for prom night.

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