The Mysteries of Prom Night

Spring in Minnesota and the first lawn mowing and first outdoor supper, and then it's spring prom. White limos the size of trawlers float up to a hotel marquee and disgorge boys in black tuxes and girls in black or turquoise or tangerine or emerald, and they troop in through the revolving doors, prepared to execute a waltz and make small talk if necessary.

This morning the boys were traipsing around in droopy pants with the crotch below the knees and unlaced basketball shoes and baseball caps turned backward, a costume that gives me the creeps, especially the backward cap. It's painful to see young men grasping at boyishness, knowing that most young women prefer men to boys, but maybe a night in waltz land will help.

Parents used to worry about children staying out late for spring prom, worry they would start breeding, but I'll bet the kids in the limos are too smart to make babies. Much better to remain nubile for another 20 years, have romances with various inappropriate people, earn a bucket of money by hosting their own TV show or modeling underwear or e-trading, and live in a cool house and give awesome parties, and get a real life somewhere around the age of 35. They know the grief that children cause, having so recently caused it--the noise, the mess, the stink, the sports programs. Millions of intelligent, literate parents condemned to long afternoons watching children scuffle around on soccer fields, a deadly punishment that should be reserved for convicted felons. And as a parent, you are forced to come in contact with educators.

My wife and I found a wonderful nursery school in St. Paul for our two-year-old, and then the educator in charge informed us that the children are required to ask permission of one another before hugging or touching. "We feel that the privacy of a child's body should be respected by other children," she said. She meant it. This is classic educator thinking: rigidity and humorlessness put forward as policy. But this is Minnesota, where Appropriate Behavior rides high in the saddle and where you hear yourself, a pink person, referred to as "a person of noncolor," and you open the morning paper and find 10,000 words about why we should all appreciate racial and ethnic diversity. It's called civic journalism, and the tone is so gummy and patronizing, you can easily see why Minnesota elected a Governor who once earned his living screeching and frothing and exchanging perspiration with other giant goombahs. He is Mr. None-of-the-Above, a guy who doesn't talk about appreciating diversity or appropriate behavior. He is a guy who may show up at the prom half-naked with his face painted blue. This is a sort of liberation.