"Michael said Celia Schrader blew him in the English classroom during the dance and Charlie said he had sex with Zora Closter in his dad's truck. Neither of those things happened at all."

"...I'm so glad I didn't go with whatever random person asked me. Um, they were probably trying to seem cool or something."

"Well they were not cool at all.."

"Yeah. Humans don't really have built-in lie detectors so they can just, like, say things and have people have no idea whether the things really happened or not. So sometimes they do that."

"Huh.

So dances are for - figuring out what you want, but if you're a coward you can instead lie about it?"

"Um. They're for, like, giving kids an excuse to go on dates and spend time with people they like, which means that people expect that cool people will end up going with someone and that the someone will like them a lot, so if people want to seem cool and nothing actually cool happened to them then sometimes they lie about it and I guess tell lies about their dates having sex with them because they figure that if you have an easy time getting girls to have sex with you then that must make you cool. I guess. Or something."

"...okay. Well please don't tell any lies about me. But the rest of that sounds good."

"I have zero plans to tell any lies about you."

"Then I will obtain fancy stuff and we'll go to the dance!"

"...okay."

Humans are honestly very confusing but he will obtain fancy stuff and, on the advice of his brother, also matchy flower things.

She buys a pair of tickets and determines that she will want a moderately fancy pretty dress, because, like, it's probably silly to care about this at all, but it's nice to try being pretty sometimes.

In the spirit of following the ancient customs, she asks her older sister for advice.

“So what vibe are we going for, here? Future nun, Disney princess, all the boys wish they could hit on you but you look like you’ll probably bite their hand off for it, Disney princess but you’re Mulan so your main priority is being able to move in case the Huns invade…?”

“…closest to Disney princess?”

“You’re wincing.”

“....I think we’re going for, like, if there was a hypothetical TV show about a girl who needed to be able to move in case the huns invaded, but she decided that just this once she was going to dress up really pretty and amaze everyone, and then there’s that scene where she descends the stairs and everyone looks at her and spends a second being in awe of how pretty she is, and then her best friend who everyone is pretty sure is a future nun comes down the stairs quietly behind her in a dress that you’re pleasantly surprised to see is only like twenty percent more daring than what you would expect her to be wearing, which means that the costuming department was actually thinking about her characterization, and nobody actually notices how pretty she is because they’re all way more focused on the main character, except for the one guy who was already interested in the friend, assuming for a moment that there is such a person, and he thinks she’s as pretty as everyone else thinks the main character is. And if there is no such person then nobody particularly notices her and she has an uneventful night in which she attracts no attention.”

“That was very specific.”

“ - or, you know, just, um, pretty and modest, I guess?"

“Oh, I’m gonna go for the very specific thing. Just, I’m your fashion consultant, not your TV writer. I can work miracles but only a couple specific ones. Although I don’t actually think you need miracles. I suspect you need a long flowy dress with a wide neckline, some flowy capey sleeves, some gauzy transparent material around your shoulders and clavicles, and a matching shawl, either in case it’s cold or in case you decide that you need to scale back the twenty percent more daring. Give you some very slightly bolder than usual makeup and free your hair from its zombie-fighting ponytail, and you’ll be most of the way there.”

“Thanks.”

“Honestly I just like it whenever I can do stuff. Speaking of which, if we do a few more practice hours and get you licensed, you can probably drive there yourself? Which just seems like it mixes way better with the Disney princess dress than the bicycles do.”

“…thank you.”

“Why I’m here, kid.”

And so Karen takes a driving test, gets an Azalea-approved dress, does some Azalea-guided makeup on the day this is to happen, and then heads into the next room of her house, because that is where her date lives.

He is wearing a suit, and has the matchy flower things, and looks very unsure how this is all supposed to work but maybe not in a bad way.

"That's a really pretty dress."