By Adrien Ha
It happens only once a year, and is, perhaps, the most dreaded thing we must face with each passing year – our annual return to school. To help alleviate the student body of this pain, however, school administrators nationwide decided to organize a type of dance to “celebrate” the return of school: Homecoming.
Homecoming has really become more trouble than it is really worth, and that there are much better alternatives to the heart-breaking, money-sucking, energy-draining dance, including the hipster movement known as Anti-Homecoming.
An arm for a gallon of gas, your soul for a ticket to Homecoming; to what ends of the Earth must we pursue in order to find such a considerable sum for such a trivial event in our lives? Perhaps they should start making tuxedos with only one pant leg and one arm sleeve and dresses with smaller hems, so formal attire can be close to affordable.
Of course, beyond the attire and the outrageously high price of admission there are other expenses – would you like a limo ride, or would you rather walk? Beyond that, there is the elaborate plan which you must concoct in order to ask someone to Homecoming; unless it is perfectly fine to be drab and ask your date by posting on their wall.
Perhaps it is necessary to purchase, with a dozen roses or a box of chocolate, a sewing kit to mend one’s broken heart. With love comes rejection.
Why must we torture ourselves year after year, poster after poster, plan after plan, only to hear “no” after “no” as an answer to that now infamous question: “Will you go to Homecoming with me?” There is of course, a simple way to avoid such unpleasantries: to attend Anti-Homecoming with a gang of friends. There is no romance required, and therefore, none of the nasty side-effects.
Say, for instance, you organize an Anti-Homecoming at Metro Pointe, and you invite a few good friends. Is there need to buy flowers, or concoct an elaborate plan? Is there need to thrust yourself into the limelight, pleading for a notice of rejection? At most, there will simply be the dilemma of “who sits next to whom?” or “how many open seats to leave in between each guy?”
After scrutiny, Homecoming is just paying an exorbitant price to go somewhere crowded to possibly dance (or watch other people dance) for a few hours.
Surely you wouldn’t have to spend as much time and energy focusing your appearance, or what you’re going to do when you arrive. There is no pressure! Just a nice, relaxing evening with a few good friends. No loud, obnoxious, ear-splitting music; no crazy body motions which may or may not qualify as dancing – you’re at your own leisure to come and go as you please, and do as you wish.
To go or not to go: that is not the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the heartache and effort and financial woes of the outrageous Homecoming, or to go against the norm, and attend Anti-Homecoming?
The decision could not be clearer – bring continual suffering upon yourself by following the crowd, or break from the crowd, attend Anti-Homecoming, and find happiness.
