Dear Kid,

Excuse me while I jot a brief letter to Not You.

Dear Vast Majority of People,

Get A Grip.

I’m not sure who is in charge of the world, but I’m pretty sure it’s not you. Please do not take upon yourself to “correct” all that is wrong with the world, because A) no single person or group can possibly fix everything all at once and B) no one appointed you Head of All Things.

Thank you.

Mom

There are problems in the world right now. Ferries are crashing, planes are disappearing, Russia is annexing territory faster than makeup trends change. But now we have entered a whole new season of nonsense: Prom Season.

Prom Season is its own kind of crazy.

Every year some people get a little loco around appropriate attire. With good reason. Sometimes girls wear dresses cut up to here or down to there and it’s a bit more than a bit much.

BUT

If there isn’t a policy about what one can or can’t wear, prom officials need to keep quiet. Oh, they can frown disapprovingly and whisper to each other how no one dressed like that in their day. (They didn’t. They had other inappropriate clothing.) But you can’t throw a kid out because her dress is too short if you don’t tell people they can’t wear dresses less than an inch long.

MOREOVER

You can’t throw a kid out of prom because you just happen not to want to wear what they are wearing.

SPECIFICALLY

You can’t throw a girl out of a prom because she is wearing red skinny jeans—unless perhaps that’s all she’s wearing which wasn’t the case in this instance.

Shafer Rupard from Cherryville, N.C. (population: not very many) was thrown out of her prom for wearing red skinny jeans. All of her body parts that should be covered were covered. In fact, I’d venture to guess she was more covered than the vast majority of the girls in attendance.

When the teacher-chaperone approached her about her attire, Shafer thought it was the leather jacket and baseball cap that were the problem and offered to take them off.

Not so, not so. It was the red skinny jeans.

Did I mention there was no dress code?

I have several thoughts about the teacher-chaperone in question (about whom no one is talking) ranging from “What were you thinking?” to “I bet you’re jealous you can’t fit in those jeans” and covering other non-complimentary acreage I wouldn’t want to print here.

And Shafer still hasn’t gotten an apology. Which may be the worst attire issue of all.

The point is: people have got to get a grip.

Love, Mom