Esther Lewis’ Twenty-Suffering

A MATRIC ball is one of the very few redeeming features of high school. That is, if it doesn’t go horribly wrong.

With all this business about donating old matric ball gowns to the less fortunate, I got to thinking about my own high school days which ended in near disaster.

At the time, the best part of high school was the fact that it was finally over. And the matric dance was the final farewell to five years misspent on awkwardness, angst, and an endless series of embarrassing moments which resulted in a whole lot of teen suffering.

The thing back then was that if you didn’t randomly rise to popularity within the first six weeks of arriving at high school, you were doomed to being uncool for the rest of your stay.

I was one of the uncool and the only way to shake off that bright neon uncool tag that had bonded with my very essence, was to change schools. A retry, if you will.

My parents weren’t very understanding or co-operative. So I stayed.

And when the time finally came to say goodbye in matric, I knew I had to get it right. After all, if like me you had not made a very good first impression, you were obliged to make a great last impression.

Easy peasy, I thought. First things first: finding a cute partner.

This was a very important component of the dance. Because unlike the weddings of many, you didn’t get to do it over again. And the last thing I wanted was myself on an unfortunate-looking person’s arm, immortalised in photos. He would forever be there, staring at me from the top of the piano in my parent’s home. If ever there was a need for a charitable drive, it would be for good looking people to donate themselves as partners for social events.

After searching high and low, I managed to find a friend who, when showered, shaved and stuck in a suit, gave the impression that he was a pretty decent looking fellow. Now all that was left to do was work a ball-gag into his suit to stop him from saying anything that would potentially embarrass me. I was more than capable of putting my own foot in it, thanks.

A bonus with said partner was that he not only had a drivers’ licence, but he also had a car. A rare find in those days. Partner, check. Lift to dance, check.

Then there was the dress. For some reason, and I shudder every time I think of it now, I thought a gold, satin, Chinese collar number would be awesome. I can’t even shift the blame here, because I designed it and chose the fabric myself. It had two long slits down each side.

I wore it with a pair of black heels. Not sexy spiked stilettos. Oh no. These were the thick ones. Like training wheels for shoes. And were best left to adorn the feet of women who made their living dangling around a pole.

Either way, it was 1999, and I thought my outfit was fabulous.

Outfit, check.

On the big day, filled with excitement, I went to the hairdresser in the early afternoon. About an hour later, my hair was platinum blonde. Thirty minutes later, it was pink!

On the verge of a serious heart-attack and a mild meltdown, I tried calling my date from my “cellphone”. It was in the very early days of mobile phones so it was a brick, which resembled a walkie-talkie.

But there wasn’t any time to be distressed about the phone, given the fact that my partner wasn’t answering!

No way. This was not happening to me. Suddenly, my pink hair didn’t seem all that important any more. Three hours to my grand entrance, and my partner was MIA (missing in action).

After my hair took another round of chemical beating, it was beautifully salvaged. My make-up was done and my dress donned. But still no partner in sight.

It was one-and-a-half hours to go, and counting.

Some lasting impression I was going to make: the only loser without a partner. At that point an unfortunate-looking guy staring at me from the piano didn’t seem like such a bad idea after all.

As visions of me drowning him in the pond at the Company’s Garden filled my head, the phone rang. It was him. There were problems with the car, but we were still on.

I calmly collected my heart off the floor, jammed it down my throat and back into my chest cavity.

Other than my dress blowing over my head during my grand entrance to the hall, the rest of the night went smashingly. Or at least the bits of it that I still remember.

I ditched my partner, partied on the beach, and watched the sun rise.

Not a bad way to end a disastrous day. A crisis had been averted… well, that was until I hit the next major one – my twenties…