It's the homecoming mum, and it has come a long way since parents of today's teens were in high school.
Back then, it was a real chrysanthemum flower given by a boy to his date, similar to a corsage given for a prom.
Today, they are mammoth, over-the-top splays of silk chrysanthemums festooned with flowing ribbons, plush animals and an array of colorful trinkets that have spawned competition among girls to see whose is the biggest, and therefore, best.
Technology has made it possible for mums to be outfitted with colorful LED lights and connections for iPods or CD players, adding splash with audio and visual capabilities.
With so many features, a mum can cost up to $500.
The tradition of the mum involves an exchange between a boy and girl who go to homecoming together. The boy presents a girl with a mum that she wears attached to a cord around her neck.
The girl presents her date with a mum attached to an elastic garter that he wears on the upper part of one arm.
Sidney Heath [...] recently received the crown jewel of [...] mums. A front and back mum sandwiches her body and is attached to a dog harness for strength and comfort.
Let me repeat that last part: "A front and back mum sandwiches her body and is attached to a dog harness for strength and comfort." I hope that I can raise my daughter in a way that instills her with the conviction that if it requires her to don an apparatus designed for a dog, then it is probably not worth doing in the first place. What self-respecting girl answers her door, and when the boy standing there offers her a dog harness to wear, cheerfully replies, "Wow, okay! Thank you so much!"
You know in the alien invasion movies, how there's always some ambiguity concerning why the aliens are attacking Earth, and some vague explanation involving their thirst for our planet's natural resources is jammed in there to keep the story moving? Well, what they don't tell you is that in the aliens' war council, when they were trying to decide whether or not our race was intelligent enough to merit mercy, they looked at the homecoming dance mum tradition and immediately concluded that it wasn't. "An intelligent race wouldn't do something like that," they decided, "we can proceed with clear consciences."
Finally, did you know that the girl who received the biggest homecoming mum in South Carolina state history has her very own video on YouTube? It's true! And here it is!
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