<p>I brought the topic up with my parents a few weeks ago. . .</p>
<p>“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“About the prom. . .”
“Oh, yeah. You’re going?”
“Well, how much does the ticket cost again?”
<em>replies with some number</em>
“Man, I haven’t got any dress clothes either. I’ll go cheap, since I know it won’t fit next year. What do you think a cheap suit would go for?”
<em>replies with some number</em>
“The afterparty is another ticket, what was it?”
<em>replies with some number</em>
“Crud. Flowers. What’s the market price on dandelions these days?”
<em>chuckles, gives an honest reply on a small bouquet</em>
“Transportation? The school-sponsored train is one expensive option. A shared limo is even worse. What do you think is reasonable?”
<em>replies with some number</em>
“Ah. So that totals what, now?”
<em>replies with some three digit number</em>
“I don’t have a job until the summer, you know, by your own mandate. Would you seriously choose to spend that money on me?”
“Yes. Certainly.”
“Alright, then I’m going to upgrade my computer with two 1 GB sticks of Corsair DDR PC3200 RAM and an nVIDIA GeForce FX6800 ULTRA 256MB GDDR3 256bit Dual DVI graphics card.”
“So you really don’t want to go?”
“Did you go?”
“Well, yes. I didn’t enjoy it at all, but I went!”
“Did dad go?”
“Good point.”</p>