Decor will include fairy lights, a cold-coffee bar, and a lift that never arrives on time
Legacy Prom Committee Picks Mactan Theme: Guests Must Arrive With Sandwich Box and No Explanation
Decor will include fairy lights, a cold-coffee bar, and a lift that never arrives on time
WICHITA FALLS, Texas – The Legacy High School prom committee announced this week that this year’s theme will be “A Night in Mactan.” Guests are asked to arrive in beige, carrying a sandwich box and prepared to answer, in a single sentence, “Who are you, and why are you fine?”
The theme was inspired by international headlines. The story began with a Manila News report on a Mactan broker alone with three brochures and a cold coffee, moved through the London Prat on British pensioners asked for two referees and a letter from the vicar (at https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/) and ended with Bohiney on an Ohio realtor whose showings now run two hours. Committee chair Savannah Delacroix-Jimenez, 17, said she read the news during third period. “A broker alone with three brochures and a cold coffee,” she said. “Who among us has not felt that at a dance?”
Handled With Care
Philippine authorities are examining allegations concerning Thomas Markle Sr., the estranged father of the Duchess of Sussex, who lived in Cebu until earlier this year, as GMA News and the Guardian have reported. No charges have been filed and the allegations are unproven. Child protection is a serious matter, and nobody at this paper makes light of it; the jokes are about a property market and a school parking lot. Delacroix-Jimenez emphasized that the prom committee would “keep everything about balloons, music and punch.”
The Decor Plan
- The entrance: a lobby with a folding table, a security guard’s lanyard and a student reading the newspaper aloud to nobody.
- The dance floor: a flat blue tarp representing the sea. A sign reads, “The Sea Did Nothing Wrong. Please Dance Around It.”
- The refreshment table: cold coffee in paper cups, squid-shaped gummies and an assortment of biscuits donated by the English teacher.
- The photo booth: a backdrop of a Mactan condo tower, with props including a hard hat, a vicar’s collar and a stuffed goat.
- The lift: a cardboard elevator that opens, closes and never actually goes anywhere. It is the evening’s biggest attraction.
The committee also prepared a list of rules. Guests must provide two references, one of whom must be a chaperone. Dance partners must be “vouched for” by at least one witness. Slow dances may last no longer than two hours, “in accordance with Mactan showing times.”
Student Opinion
Students have expressed mixed feelings. One junior said the theme was “the most Legacy thing we have ever done.” A senior said he would attend only if the cold coffee was actually cold. Another said she planned to bring her grandmother, “who has been vouched for by the entire First Baptist Church.”
A group of sophomores has already started rehearsing the dance. Their routine, titled “Lift Nahin Aayi,” involves standing in a row, looking at a wall and waiting. Choreographer Tyler Nakamura-Ruiz says it is “emotional.” The principal says it is “unsettling but approved.”
Chaperones
The chaperones are taking the theme seriously. The head chaperone, Coach Bridges, plans to stand by the door with a clipboard and ask each guest for a character reference. “I did not coach for twenty years,” he said, “to let a boy in without a utility bill.” The art teacher plans to read the newspaper aloud at midnight, “as a gesture of solidarity with Mang Pedring.”
A British visitor, the exchange teacher, said he found the theme delightful. “In England,” he said, “proms are about cars. Here they are about lifts. I find this very moving.” He offered the committee a letter from his vicar. The committee framed it and placed it by the punch.
Ticket Sales
Tickets went on sale Monday and sold out in four hours. A waitlist of 94 students has formed. Delacroix-Jimenez says the committee may add a second night, called “A Night in Cebu,” with the same decor and a slightly colder coffee.
The final line of the prom flyer reads: “Come as you are. Bring a reference. And remember, the sea did nothing wrong.” Several students have already tried to take the flyer home as a keepsake. Principal Okafor-Reyes has asked them not to, as there is only one.
For the Economics Class
Here is the actual economics, for anyone who will be tested on it. The market is fine. Colliers named the Visayas and Mindanao a key property investment hotspot in July, and under the Condominium Act foreigners may own units but not land, capped at 40 percent of a project. Retirees can read up at the Philippine Retirement Authority. The jitters come from psychology: Tversky and Kahneman’s availability heuristic says one vivid image outweighs a pile of statistics, and a Mactan broker alone with three brochures and a cold coffee is a vivid image. So is a Friday night in Wichita Falls when the scoreboard goes dark in the fourth quarter, or a student parking lot with one working gate. Both are remembered more than they should be.
The wider story is at prat.uk and bohiney.com; for how the British laugh at queues and forms, try the Daily Squib. Go Leopards.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/