I reiterate: DEATH TO PROM. As I sit here, poised upon the very precipice of my future, I had a revelation. That revelation was that the final days of my high school career could either be spent in a delirious haze on some stretch of Florida’s coastline or they could be spent standing by the snack-bar of some pretentious dance hall, my will to live slowly ebbing away under the onslaught of a techno remix of a rap song.

My friends, prom is the single greatest atrocity inflicted upon mankind. Prom dates back to ancient Sumaria, where it was known as, “Promofidiotias.” It was an unholy ritualistic ceremony where the young men and women of the city were forced to leap about and gyrate to the drumming of the elders. Colored glass and torches were used to create an atmosphere of fear and dread, and many young people of the tribe chose public execution rather than face the prom. After that, the tradition evolved throughout the cultures. Modern examples include insane asylums and prisons, which are, in effect, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week proms.

You should also ask yourself what the main ingredient of prom is. Hint: It begins with a “D” and ends with “ancing.” Yes, dancing. That hideous past-time of the criminally insane is the driving force behind prom. Now I’m not talking about ballet or salsa or something that takes actual skill and talent to do well; I’m talking about the “heroin-addict-being-electrocuted-by-cattle-prod” type of spastic flailing that seems to be all the rage among those of the teen age. Is there anyone out there that likes to dance? Anyone at all? Do you gain pleasure by doing funky pelvic gyrations and twirling around like a kindergartner who just inhaled an entire pack of Sharpee Markers? I’ve written about my hatred of dancing before, so I’ll just wrap it up by saying that I hate dancing and it should be banned.

What else will you have to subject yourself to in order to get a prom? Can we say stupid clothes? I can’t talk much about the female side of this, but given the male “I’ll wear whatever is within arm’s reach” and female “Each molecule of fabric must be in the proper position” attitudes towards clothing, I can only assume that the girls will have to take what I say about the guys and multiply it by a million.

If you’re a guy you’ll have to get a stupid tux. A monkey suit. The same things that corpses wear. Because, you see, that’s really what a suit is. It’s an admission that you’re dead. Getting fitted for the suit is a hideous ordeal in and of itself. The person doing it will take it far too seriously and you’ll spend 5 hours trying on different pieces of clothing. It will be like reliving all those times when you were 5 years old and your mom took you to K-Mart, and forced you to try on each and every pair of neon colored shorts they had.

Not to mention that the suit itself is amazingly uncomfortable and not at all fit for spazzing around (I mean dancing) in. Do you see how prom makes no sense? The entire thing is structured around being a jackass and flailing around, but you have to wear really nice clothes to do it. Hey, thanks, but if I wanted to humiliate myself by flopping around like a gopher hit by a shotgun blast, I’d just wear casual clothes, go down to West Oaks Mall, and play “Dance Dance Revolution” in the arcade for an hour.

You’ll probably also have to shell out close to a billion dollars for a limo and whatever your wench of a date is going to want you to buy for her. “Oh, honey, for prom I’d really like one of those $4,000 ‘Royal Red’ Roses from Tibet. Could you do that for me?” And if you’re still human and still male, a pretty girl asking you to do something will result in you just sort of staring ahead, smiling, and then nodding. The really unfair thing about it is that if you tell them to shut the hell up and buy their own stupid crap you’ll end up like me, sitting at home alone writing bitter emails about prom.

Then there’s all the fund raising. You’ll be killing yourself in the boiling sun washing cars, selling things, and begging for money all in the name of prom. All that suffering to do something you hate. It’s like working all summer long to raise enough money to buy a really fancy letter opener that you stab yourself in the brain with. Because that’s really what prom is: Something that looks showy and pretty, but just ends up stabbing you in the brain. Making you dumber. I think that’s the best analogy I’ve ever made.

Prom is the mind-killer. What would you rather do? Gyrate to a techno remix of the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” wearing a suit or wander the streets of, say, Daytona rejoicing in your freedom?

I know we’ll do the right thing.