BRANDON - Before I get to the part where my friend is standing in a cheap rented tux with his sweaty prom date on the side of Interstate 4 next to a dead Corvette, let me get one thing clear.
My friend Brian and I were dorks.
But there was little we could do about it in that spring of 1982, our senior year at Brandon High.
We couldn't suddenly - after years of practicing paralyzing insecurity, ignorance, self-consciousness and a tremendous fear of girls - be cool.
Brian, for instance, drove a station wagon called "The Swamp Mobile" because after leaving the rear window open in a rain storm, we found tad poles swimming in a green pool on the floor board. Years later the swamp stench - and the green-like substance that may have been fungi - never went away.
Me? I still believed stupid things like Hai Karate after shave was "high quality" cologne and that it actually might improve my chances with girls.
Nonetheless, for some mysterious reason, two pretty, wonderful girls said yes when Brian and I asked them to the Brandon High prom. My date was Holly Hudson while Brian's date will remain anonymous in an effort to protect the innocent.
Excited about the big prom, Brian and I rented ugly tuxes. We bought corsages and Hai Karate. We planned how we were going to get to the Lakeland Civic Center.
We had to travel to Lakeland because our graduating class in 1982 was way too big - more than 1,100 students and one of the largest in the entire country - to have the prom at the school.
Also keep in mind that a limousine or a group bus - no doubt popular modes of transportation to this year's Brandon High prom, scheduled for May 12 at The Regent in Riverview - were nowhere on our radar.
We had to drive ourselves.
I give Brian credit because he at least had enough sense to realize that driving his date in the fungi-infested Swamp Mobile wasn't cool.
In a miraculous turn of events, he somehow coerced one of his sister's older friends, Barry, to loan him his Corvette for the night, and suddenly Brian's cool curve shot up.
In Brandon in 1982, where people generally drove relative pieces of junk, seeing a Corvette was akin to spotting an exotic tiger.
This one, for instance, had a digital dashboard! Are you kidding me?! The car looked like a red and silver version of the Bat Mobile.
Barry told Brian that the digital dashboard was a bit on the fritz and that although it said it had a full tank of gas, it actually might not. Barry said, "You might want to fill up the tank just to be safe."
Ha, ha, ha, Barry and Brian laughed. Brian said he thought Barry was joking, "because Barry was laughing," and, after all, such an exotic creature as the Corvette could not possibly malfunction.
Brian did not fill up the tank.
About 25 miles from the Lakeland Civic Center, Barry's Corvette began sputtering and chugging. Brian's date, already profusely sweating from the goofy prom photos in front of Brian's house, began sweating more ... and more and more.
Me? I was driving in my parents' four-door Oldsmobile 88, a brown beast that got about three miles to the gallon, but unlike Brian's Corvette, had a full tank.
My date, Holly (God bless her), was crammed into the car in one of the biggest bluest dresses in Brandon High prom history because her crinolines (a stiffened structured petticoat designed to hold out a woman's gown) were larger than the ones worn by the Princess Dagmar of Denmark in the 1860s.
Holly and I could barely see over the dashboard due to Holly's crinolines, but see we did: Brian and his increasingly sweaty date stranded on the side of the road.
By the time we got to Brian, he said someone else had already stopped and had driven off to find a pay phone to call Barry, who hopefully was at home because, don't forget, this was decades before the cell phone.
I was terribly concerned because, on top of the sweat, Brian's date was turning red as a Christmas bulb.
Holly and I left Brian and his date on the side of I-4 because, he said, help supposedly was on the way.
Almost two hours after the prom started, Brian and his date arrived at the Lakeland Civic Center, two of the sweatiest and dustiest (because the passing cars on I-4 whipped up such a dusty frenzy) couples in Brandon High prom history.
Turns out, after they filled up the Corvette's gas tank, the car still didn't start because for some reason - probably something stupid that Brian did - the battery had died.
The next week Brian's date reportedly picked up the professional, stiffly-posed prom photos, but she never showed them to Brian. A friend got a rare glimpse of the photographic evidence and said Brian and his date looked, "extremely tired and stressed."
In the end, I did not suffer as much as Brian and his sweat-stained date, but I do remember being excruciatingly intimidated and awkward and leaving the night hoping Holly knew I thought she looked pretty and that I was honored to be her date and that I wished I had been more cool for her.
But I was not cool. I couldn't help it. I was 17.
Now, 36 years after that glorious night in the midst of this prom season, I wonder: Are 17-year-old boys still dorks?
God I hope so.
Because no matter how painful it might be at the time, there can be such a redeeming innocence in young ignorance.
Message to all the dorky boys heading to this year's prom: Don't try to be cool, because you're not. You are 17 or 18 or whatever. You can't help it.
Tell your date she looks beautiful. If you're driving, make sure your gas tank is full. Don't wear too much cheap cologne.
Be polite. Be yourself. Be safe.
Enjoy.
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