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News-Sentinel.com Your Town. Your Voice.
Opening Arguments

No cheap date

Awww, the poor babies:

PENDLETON — The dress, the hair, the limo, the dinner.

It's never cheap to go to a high school prom.

But Hannah Cantrell estimates her costs will be over $400 for Pendleton Heights High School's prom at the Murat Theatre in Indianapolis. At first, she guessed around $350 for clothes, but she remembered that her hair and nails had to be ready, too.

[. . .]

A researcher at North Dakota State University found couples in that Midwestern state spent an average $509 on the prom in 2004, with girls shouldering $296 and boys $213.

[. . .]

This year, Your Prom magazine polled its readers, usually a group of more upscale teens. The average price tag was over $1,000. Boys spent $545; girls, $530.

Maybe I'm just bitter because I was too much of a pathetic nerd in high school to even think of going to the prom. But just think of all the cell-phone minutes the kids could pay for if they cheapened up on the prom a bit.

Comments

Doug
Fri, 04/25/2008 - 10:39am

I blame the girls. You know the guys would go in jeans and a T-shirt and eat McDonalds if they thought the girls would let them get away with it. What's a case of Natural Light go for these days?

Harl Delos
Fri, 04/25/2008 - 12:46pm

Yes, the girls want to dress up like a princess and be squired around by a handsome prince.

What's more, their mothers and fathers want to shoot some snapshots as the handsome prince, wearing medicine over his pimples, picks up their virginal Cinderella and whisks her off to fantasy land.

My daughter was stillborn. I sure wish I could have faced those bills, and those of an even more expensive wedding.

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