by R. Michael Straight

Created on: April 26, 2008

The Prom, a mandatory "dance" held in high schools all over the United States, Canada, Egypt, Iceland, Cuba, South Korea, Angola, Cameroon, and parts of southern Uzbekistan, is often referred to as "Devil's Night" or "The Night Before the Morning After" (occasionally the word "Pill" is added, though usually in jest).It serves as a social gathering, mating ritual and log-rolling competition for out-of-work DJs, high school teachers and, sometimes, high school students.

"Prom" is actually an acronym for Pasta Roses Obstetrics and Matrimony. This is due to the schedule of events when the Prom was first held in 1512 just outside Cairo. (Some historians claim that the Prom did not, in fact, begin in early 16th century Egypt, and instead began sometime in the late 19th century in New England, but this is almost never regarded as a legitimate theory and is often lumped with other bizarre theories like gravity, evolution and American Idol.) Traditionally, Prom night would begin with a large pasta dinner, most often at a restaurant locals see as "hoity-toity" and overpriced. Male prom-goers use this in much the same way the male Marvelous Spatuletail displays his brilliant tail feathers in an attempt to impress and convince a potential mating partner to "give it up." One might believe the roses were always present as a gift from the male Prom-goer to his female date, but this is only a recent development. Originally, it was good luck to have one or two of the local recently deceased decorated with rose-bud garlands, propped up in positions so as to appear to be dancing along side the living attendees. As sanitation laws became stricter, this practice was abandoned, to the dismay of many. As for Obstetrics and Matrimony, the obvious assumption is the correct one: most male dates were local doctors and priests.

During the late 1960s there was a time when Prom was called "that one night where everybody pays too much for their dinner and clothes but at least gets laid," but no matter how sexually liberated the culture, "Tonweptmftdacbatglwas" just too difficult to say for non-Icelanders, so "Prom" remained the accepted title.

Preparing for Prom takes six months to a year. Female Prom-goers typically get their dates' names tattooed on their bodies, in case they get separated during the course of the night. Their male counterparts, as a ritual, do not masturbate for two months prior to Prom night, which many claim explains the number of births that follow. As for the cost, many

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