Nobody puts baby in a corner

So the circus is rolling out today, but another circus of sorts has arrived. The symphony guild is hosting a debutante ball tonight and all of the girls are at our hotel practicing with their escorts. I heard them receiving instructions from the coordinator in one of the ballrooms as we were heading to breakfast. She reminded them that the presentation of each couple is a very very very serious affair. On our way back a few of the gals were hanging out texting and surfing the net on their phones in the hallway, white fluffy crinolines on over jeans, high heeled dance shoes already on their feet. Later tonight they'll be decked out in ball gowns.

I had no idea our hometown still had debutantes. I do know that the deb society was around when I was a teenager, and I was just as surprised by it then, when my mother and I stopped in a local department store to try on prom dresses and found that one of the dressing rooms, the only empty one, was reserved for debs to try on dresses. I stood there clutching the dress of my dreams, while my mother insisted rather loudly that we be allowed to use the dressing room. It was the "nobody puts baby in a corner" moment of my teen years, except instead of some hot guy, it was my own mother dragging me to the dance floor. Years later I found out that the dress I purchased which was a white flowing gown with a sequined bodice, was also a deb dress. The girls wear white to the ball put on for the final presentation as they are launched into society. I must have looked so ridiculous to those women at the store with my white gown and irate Italian mother.

So we're at the nicest hotel in town which hosts everyone from circus folks to debutantes. And that pretty much sums up my hometown.