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Debs mania
The icing on the secondary school cake.
Depending on where you go to school, debs season is probably either just starting or soon coming up on the horizon. Or you might be preparing for the grad and if you’re from Donegal (or have a lifelong dedication to Saved By The Bell), the prom.
Whatever you call it and whenever you celebrate it, it’s a pretty big event and one that costs a bit. However, the amount girls sometimes spend on the icing on their secondary school cake is quite extraordinary.
It was recently revealed that some girls have spent up to €1,000 on their prom/debs. Eh? How is that even possible? Of course you wouldn’t expect it to be cheap, but at that rate it sounds like some girls are trying to replicate one of those awful “Spoilt Brat’s Birthdays” type shows on MTV. I tell ya, it wasn’t like that in my day, and I can remember my prom like it was four years ago…
All it cost me was about €50 for my suit rental, over three quid for a new tub of brylcreem and about a tenner on the whole chocolates and rose thing, gentleman that I am. On the night, because of our school’s no alcohol policy there wasn’t much to spend there, barring the occasional pint of Cidona. Of course the psychological cost of the night was much greater, but that’s another story for another day.
But maybe I’m coming at this from the wrong angle, generally speaking blokes won’t spend anything near as much on the debs because, well, we don’t need to. I vividly recall discussing with my date the itinerary of the day of the prom. While I arsed about the house for most of the day and put on the suit at about five o’clock, she started getting ready at about eleven o’clock that morning, and was just about done by the time I got to her house at seven that night.
Girls put infinitely more stock and therefore more effort into the whole experience: nails have to be just perfect, hair takes the best part of the day and requires a team of styling experts, all-over tan which has to be done at least the night before, a hunt for a dress so extensive that it makes the build-up to X-Factor seem ad hoc, and shoes so pretty that the wearer is more than happy to move down a size or two for the sake of style. The latter practice I have found to be astonishingly common.
It might seem like much ado about nothing, but it is an important part of a student’s life, a rite of passage that they can only experience once. Unless they repeat of course… But anyway, it still is an important night where you forget about the impending pressures of the Leaving Cert and let you hair down whilst fabulously dressed. Yeah, it might cost a bit more than your average night out, but in the end it’s totally worth it.
Mind you, if your checklist is coming up on the “one grand” mark, you might want to rethink your budget…
By: Paddy Duffy
The opinions of writers featured on SpunOut.ie do not necessarily reflect the views of the SpunOut.ie team or those of Community Creations. We try to give everyone a chance to have their opinions heard but we are not responsible for inaccuracies contained within these.
