Prom is a special moment in a teenager’s life. And nothing makes that moment truly special like having just the right theme in which to celebrate. So choose wisely before you find your precious memories ruined by the following.
10. Crapped Out in Vegas
Your special evening begins with high hopes and a small wad of betting money. It ends with you 40K in the hole and begging mobsters to leave you at least one thumb so you can still open jars. In between you’ll discover “counting cards” does not simply mean knowing there are 52 in a deck, that cashing in all your insulin for six chips speaks of greater problems and that stopping a roulette wheel by throwing your sobbing body on it does not impress your date. The next day you wake up with a hangover and married to your teacher, guaranteeing you at least a C+ in health class.
9. Welcome to Your Nightmare
Why does everyone have a chicken head? How come every time you try to scream you can’t make a sound and every time you try to run you can’t move an inch? Why are your parents doing it right in front of you? Every horrifying image from your dreams is brought to vivid life in the school gymnasium thanks to paper mache, mood lighting and a complete mental breakdown brought on by worrying if your hair or dress looks right. Although it will feel like it goes on for hours, the prom will last no more than five minutes, whereupon you’ll wake up in a cold sweat wondering what all those people were pointing and screaming in abject terror at just below your waist.
8. Direct-to-DVD Hollywood
Experience true Hollywood glitz and glamour this year on a very, very limited budget. Instead of holding your prom in a beautifully decorated hall, you do it in someone’s apartment or a public area using only natural light. All the music is done on GarageBand, every food item has the word “Kirkland” on the side of the box and occasionally a boom mic will fall right in the middle of everything for no good reason. True, most of your prom photos will be poorly framed and done in tight close-ups so not to reveal only six people showed up. But what the evening lacks in class is made up for by scoring an appearance from direct-to-DVD star Corey Feldman or Dustin Diamond for like ten bucks, tops.
7. Family Dinner
Grab a foldout chair from the garage, don’t let the dog scare you and help yourself to some skinless chicken wings (fried food gives Uncle Lou gas). Then get ready for six hours of awkward conversations about what you plan to do after high school, why you look like you’ve been drinking, if that thing on their neck is a tumor and if those things on your chest are real and why most teenagers really should be in prison. After that the relatives will turn on each other, arguing about money, 30-year-old disagreements and who really has gained the most weight as you sneak out the back door only to be attacked by a Rottweiler.
6. Christmas in May
Ring in the season seven months too early as the typical prom band is replaced with carolers, the punch bowl is full of eggnog and every non-Christian prom date is clearly offended. With all the waiters dressed as elves and all the Santas probably from a prison work-release program, you’ll get in the holiday mood whether you like it or not thanks to every dish being turkey, mistletoe being hung everywhere (including bathrooms) and everyone being assaulted with a new padded-out version of “The 12 Days of Christmas” that includes the line “89 apothecaries apothecaring.” Add to the fact that the prom starts at 5 am and ends when everyone is asleep in torn wrapping paper and you have the makings of an event you’ll be talking about until your “New Years Eve” theme graduation.
5. Moon Station 2112
How cool would it be to spend your prom pretending to be in deep space? How cool would it be to spend that pretend time monitoring soil samples? How cool would it be to realize that you’ve been seeing the same people every day (or night or whatever the hell time it is on the moon) for six straight months and you’ve lost all desire to say anything to them that can’t be expressed with a middle finger? How cool would it be to just run the hell out of the station only to realize that you weren’t so much “pretending” to be in space as “marooned” there, minus an atmosphere or any way to get back inside. How cool would that be?
4. Time Is Passing You By
Countless clocks remind you that with every fun-filled second your youth is passing you by, to be replaced with a lifetime of mortgage payments, hypochondria and several kids screaming about God knows what because you’ll be in your garage working on your time machine to bring you back to your prom. So rather than get depressed, embrace what time you have. Do everything and anything you ever wanted before the chaperones toss you out or your future middle-aged self appears in a time machine, embarrassing you by undoing their pants and asking everyone there if it looks like a rash or leprosy.
3. Kid’s Birthday Party
Here’s your chance to get buzzed on flat cola and bloated on cheep pizza as you run screaming around the table after friends and run screaming away from a 40-year-old man dressed as a rat in a Little League shirt. Entertainment consists of an animatronic critter band trying to rework the “Happy Birthday Song” as a slow ballad for the king and queen’s dance, watching your date hook up with someone else at the opposite end of an air hockey table and blowing $86 on skeeball in the hopes of winning enough tickets to purchase back your dignity. Prom ends when the place closes at 6 pm for their customers’ bedtime.
2. Viral Outbreak
Lock the doors, suit up tight and tell your parents you won’t be coming home for at least 72 hours because this prom requires a 30-block safety perimeter. As helicopters hover overhead and the President is briefed you’ll be hosed down repeatedly while the Center for Disease Control tries to determine who didn’t so much spike the punch as contaminate it. A bonding experience for you and your classmates, this scenario will promote togetherness—then fierce infighting—as you collectively go through the six stages of grief before falling into each other’s arms one last time.
1. Limbo
And finally, for those looking for a truly cost-effective prom theme, might we suggest limbo? Nothingness awaits you and your date as you enter a void with no music, no decorations and no photographer to take pictures of all that isn’t there. It may not be the most memorable prom, it may even provoke an existential crisis, but years from now when people ask what you did at your prom and you answer “I…I don’t have the foggiest idea” they’ll think you had such a freakin’ blast that you can’t remember a thing.
What's the worst prom theme you've ever heard of? Tell us in the comments!
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