When my daughter, Heather, was a senior in high school she and her friend, Shannon invited two boys to the girl-asks-boy formal dance.

Heather needed a dress for the dance so I asked my sister Christy if she would like to come over and make a formal. She readily agreed and arrived in a few days to spend a few days.

When it came time to make the dress, Christy and Heather went to the fabric store to get everything they needed. Christy is a gifted seamstress, so we all knew the dress would be beautiful. It was. Christy spent the next day making the dress, a beautiful powder blue formal, fitted top and lacy overskirt.

We sat down to dinner that night and Christy asked Heather, “What is the theme for the dance?”

“Back to the Jungle,” Heather answered.

“Oh,” said Christy, “then we should have made your dress out of camouflage material!”

We all laughed, then one of us said, “Let’s do it!”

Back to the fabric store—for camouflage material for two dresses.

Christy’s talent with the sewing machine had the two new dresses made in just a few hours.

The day of the dance, the girls were way into the ruse. The dresses out their costumes with hats and boots, a 22 rifle, duffle bags, and ropes.

Dance night they picked up the boys in their costumes. Heather’s date, Nick, was first. The girls sat in the front seat voicing their “plans” for the evening, terrifying poor Nick. At one point Shannon turned around to him and said, “Oh, by the way, you are going to have to sign an insurance waver before we get to where we are going.”

When they picked up Shannon’s date, Bill, Nick whispered what he had heard the girls in the front seat talking about.

The girls brought the trepidating boys to our house for pictures. 

The boys were in shock, imagining the attention and laughter they were about to get from their classmates at the dance

After the pictures, the girls disappeared.

The boys didn’t know that they were changing into their classic formals.

A few minutes later Heather came around into the kitchen where Nick and I were waiting for her. She looked stunning!

I thought Nick was going to faint.

He fell against the kitchen counter and said, “Oh, bless you.”