COLUMN: Homecoming and the quest for a goodnight kiss
I always thought going to Homecoming as a married man would be kind of like trick-or-treating as an adult. In other words, I thought it was an event I wouldn’t participate in.
My wife thought when we got married I would stop playing video games and pretending I was John Elway.
We were both wrong.
Since Homecoming is one of the few chances she has to dance, she wanted me to go. I strongly resisted, but when I saw that Homecoming fell on her birthday, I gave in.
In high school, you get a group of friends and make your plans. Homecoming was always a battle in the Jessop household as my sister Laura and I haggled with our parents about curfew, parental supervision and, for my sister, how short her dress was allowed to be.
Every high school homecoming was a bit of a nightmare for me. Usually, I was at fault for this.
Sophomore year I asked one of my sister’s friends. The night got off to a blazing start when I was the only person in my large group to buy a chest pin corsage. Nobody told me how out of style this was. I was understandably nervous trying to pin it to her chest area as her parents watched with camera in hand. After about a minute of fumbling around, her mom finally volunteered to help.
The next mistake that night was that I didn’t want to shell out the extra money my friends were spending on a limousine, so I decided to follow in my parents’ Subaru.
The final mistake was that I didn’t know my date very well. So, as the radio played in the car and we drove to and from the far away “romantic” mountain restaurant we suffered through painful conversations about topics like what our favorite colors were and whether she liked the song playing on the radio. Needless to say, no good night kiss
for Clark.
The next year I was a little more hopeful that my lips would lock at her doorstep. As we pulled onto her street at the end of the night, I noticed my breath probably wasn’t so great. So, in an unsuccessful attempt to look non-chalant, I threw about 35 green Tic-Tac’s in my mouth.
“Let me walk you to your door,” I said casually as the three dozen Tic-Tac’s rattled around in my mouth. About halfway to the door, I realized I couldn’t kiss her with my mouth full, so I slyly spit them out on her lawn. I think she saw me. Anyway, strike two on my Homecoming good night kiss.
Finally, senior year my date was a psycho. At dinner, she didn’t eat or talk. Long story, but I’ll just say the night ended with her crying and telling all of the girls what a jerk I was.
By the time I graduated high school, I firmly believed it was no coincidence Halloween and Homecoming were both in the same month. Both seemed to have the purpose of scaring me.
In college, Homecoming is a bit different. It is obvious there are no parents to tell their daughters their dresses are too short, or the slit in the leg isn’t supposed to run from their feet to their ribs. Not as bad as Saturday’s Howl, but Homecoming is still a flesh-fest.
Being married, it’s different still. Our group consisted of me and my wife, a pregnant friend and her husband, and a couple who needed to be home early to pick up their baby at the babysitter. It was much different from the excitement, but eventual letdown of my high school experiences.
We left at 11, so we missed the group make-out at the “A.” But that didn’t stop me from getting my goodnight kiss.
Clark Jessop is a senior majoring in broadcast journalism. Comments can be sent to
clarkjessop@cc.usu.edu.