https://mediumhappi.org/?p=6578
by Katie McCollow
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It’s customary here at Medium Happy to start out wishing a famous person a Happy Birthday, so here you go: Happy Birthday, Drew Carey! Can you believe he is 57 years old, and still alive as far as anyone knows?
According to Famousbirthdays.com, the Internet’s most reliable source for celebrity birthdays (I know this because it came up first when I googled “May 23rd birthdays”), Mr. Carey is the 8th most popular person to celebrate a birthday today.
That statistic seems unlikely, even though it comes from such a rock-solid source. So I clicked the button on the page that said so, hoping to get a little more information (what can I say? It’s the journalist in me).
My one-click deep-dive led me to another page that listed Youtube stars called Gavin Free and…
… Little Kelly as the first and second most popular people celebrating birthdays today.
I know exactly who they both are and I can’t believe you don’t.
I need to lie down.
I will not do that annoying, clueless old-person thing where the clueless old person goes on a rant about youngsters she’s never heard of who are famous via avenues she knows little about and are therefore meaningless. I will not.
NOT ME DOING THIS: Young people stuff!! BRAAAAHHHR why isn’t it the nineties anymore???
In fact, I’m going to do the complete opposite and say “Of course! I enjoy the work of both those YouTubers, doing whatever it is they do. I don’t waste my time watching network television while I ride around on my pet Woolly Mammoth! Now I must go turn myself into a Panda on Snapchat! It’s called a story.“
I’m actually surprised Drew Carey made it into the top ten.
***
This weekend was my son’s Senior Prom. Ah, prom…do you remember, kids? Do you? I do.
I was on student council all through high school—yep, I was that girl. The first three years I ran successfully (especially brow-raising when you consider that in ninth grade, I though it would be an extra-cool touch to have my fingernails painted with rainbows for the election) but as a senior, when I thought all I had to do was show up with my long list of bureaucratic accomplishments (those elf-a-grams don’t distribute themselves, people!) I got my ass handed to me by a football player who made fun of my overly earnest speech.
Don’t. Just no, is what I learned too late
I was so distraught at the thought of losing my cushy homeroom, long lunches and access to power (typical, right?), I petitioned the student body to allow me back on. I sat in the principal’s office with my list of signatures, pride nowhere to be found, and begged. He smirked as I did so, which at the time, I did not appreciate. Looking back, I can’t believe he didn’t actually laugh in my Tracy Flick face.
I even kind of looked like her
Where was I? Oh yeah, prom. Well, I always signed up for the prom committee, because it was like, the pinnacle of the school year and financing it was pretty much the reason the student council existed. One year, I may have made some, um, bold claims about getting The Replacements to play, based on the fact that my younger sister was besties with Slim Dunlap’s daughter. (That’s actually true.)
The Replacements: We don’t do proms
I may have, before gathering all the information I needed, flapped my gums a little more than was wise, and when my dear friend, eventual prom date and die-hard Replacements fan swung me up in a tearful bear hug and bellowed “You’re getting the MATS??” I may have answered with an awkward “Mmmmm…” panic growing in my belly. Rainbow-painted fingernails were the least egregious of my political misfires.
Suffice to say, the Mats did not play our prom, I got my bangs cut way too short the day before and I made the bizarre culinary choice of ordering rabbit at our pre-dance dinner, which gave me such gut-punishing gas I was in agony for most of the night.
Prom night, 1987. I am the the one sporting a pink dress, no bangs and a strangely aggressive pose. I’m not bloated just yet.
Prom! It’s magical, kids. Just like in the movies…
Five Best Prom Movies—I refuse to include any of the actual Prom Night movies, because I hate hacker/horror films.
Valley Girl (1983)
Shades of Romeo and Juliet, a soupcon of The Graduate, a Josie Cotton soundtrack and a pre-dental work, pre- balding Nicholas Cage. Love it.
My leg warmers experience is a story for a different day
Can’t Buy Me Love (1987)
McDreamy! Do we still call him that, even though Patrick Dempsey hasn’t been on Grey’s Anatomy for some time? Not that I would know. I only watch Youtube and Vines and Instagrams.
He was actually pretty cute then, too…RIP, beautiful Ms. Peterson!
10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
Julia Stiles, who I am constantly confusing for Erika Christensen (yes, constantly, as in every moment of every day–I’m not kidding, ask my kids) and a fresh-on-the -scene Heath Ledger in a modern (well, if you’re like me and 1999 seems like fourteen seconds ago) teenaged take of Taming of the Shrew.
Above: House of Stiles. Below: The Most F’ed Up Daughter In The Upside of Anger
It’s not just me, right?
Pretty in Pink (1986)
Siiiigh. John Hughes, of course, and starring the darling Andrew McCarthy, hilarious Jon Cryer, 80’s it-girl Molly Ringwald and a hideous pink dress.
The gist is, for those unlucky ones amongst you who have not seen this movie, she is a poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks in love with a posh preppy boy (Andrew McCarthy) who is out of her tax bracket. A bunch of stuff happens and her best friend Ducky (Jon Cryer) tries to tell her that she’s too good for the posh preppy boy anyway, so she shouldn’t sweat it, but she does, to the point that she makes this awful dress so she has something to wear to the prom and prove she’s just as good as anyone.
I mean…
Anyone who’s ever met a high school girl knows there’s absolutely no talking her out of a crush, even if her nice best friend loves her to pieces, and there’s certainly no talking her out of a completely heinous dress that she thinks is pretty.
Case in point: this next picture is of me from last summer, wearing a dress that I wore to a high school dance (not prom, but my companion to the dance to which I wore this sartorial abortion did, miraculously, ask me to the prom one month later) and that I found at my mother’s house, so naturally, put on. It’s actually quite similar to the dress Molly Ringwald wore in Pretty in Pink; it’s pink, it’s boxy and shapeless, but her dress is actually sexier, since hers exposes her shoulders and does not include a large, sandwich-board-like chastity bib. This dress very clearly says, “HANDS OFF THE MERCHANDISE”.
Does it come with a wimple? Which sister-wife am I again?
My mom actually made this dress, as she did most of the dresses I wore in my life (see: Prom picture, above)up until about age 25, including my wedding dress (she also made all the bridesmaids dresses, and she’s made many dresses nad ). She is a spectacularly excellent seamstress. None of the blame belongs to her, as it was 100 percent designed by me. It speaks to my mother’s great love for me that at no point did she say, “Sweetie, this dress makes you look like a doomsday cultist.”
Carrie (1976)
“Wait just a freegin’ flaggin’ minute.” you’re probably thinking, “She said no horror films!” First of all, I didn’t exactly say that. I mean I kind of did, but really, I’m going to make a ‘five best prom movies’ list and not put Carrie on it?? Secondly, what in the Sam Hill does “freegin’ flaggin’” even mean? Anyway yes, it’s technically a horror film. But, you know, high school.
That looks about right
Editor’s Note: We’re sure Katie would agree: Drive Me Crazy, starring pre-Entourage Adrian Grenier and Melissa Joan Hart (not to be confused with Melissa Sue Anderson, Mary Hart, Hart Lee Dykes, or Rachel Maddow….Heyyyyyyyy! That’s not nice!) is a hidden gem of teen/prom films. If just for the idea of “Designated Dave” alone, it’s a winner.
Drive Me Crazy came out in 1989 (update: make that 1999).
I’ve never seen Drive Me Crazy! I will watch it as soon as I recover from that bizarre Madonna spectacle on the Billboard awards last night. How can either of those two be old enough to have made a prom movie in 1989??
Oops. Did we say 1989 for “Drive Me Crazy?” Make that 1999….
Love it! Love that weird pink mermaid gills dress too.
I just realized Slim Dunlap is not actually in the picture of the Mats.
Katie- We love you and welcome back. Great prom stuff, but way to sneak in that humblebrag regarding the fact that over 25 years later you can still fit into that “sister-wife” dress. Of course we noticed. You would have too.
Ha ha ha whoopsie!
BTW, Slim Dunlap is, sadly, in poor health since a stroke in 2012. http://www.songsforslim.com
Yeah, Slim’s in our prayers!
Katie is actually a bit slimmer than she was in high school. I wore that very dress to my brother in law’s wedding in 1986. My husband pointed out the nun-habitery of it immediately. I didn’t believe him. No wonder I never went to prom. OH, yes and the rainbow nails were my idea, first too. Poor Katie. She was 32 before she realized her older sister had never been cool a day in her life.
YOU ARE THE COOLEST
It was also you who helped me pick out my outfit for that election– pink sweatshirt, green paisley Bermuda shorts that mom made. And you had the ability to make people think whatever you did was cool–like Cher. I couldn’t pull off the nails.