How I (A Half-Man/Half-Ant Hybrid) Found A Date To Prom

By Lizzy Rudakas & Clark Pavlik

Are you nervous about the upcoming prom season? Have all of your high-school crushes remained just crushes? Did you have one human parent who fell in love with a bug? That was me too. So don’t get your antenna in a bunch, here are eleven steps that might help you find a date to prom!

Step One: Locate the prettiest and most beautiful looking human in the entire school. Her name might be Mariah Michael and she just might have lemon blonde hair that smells of sugar and the most dazzling eyes that make your gaster sweat bullets.

Step Two: Take your time working on a ‘promposal’ sign and make sure to use your human hands this time! It will be yellow, like her lemon hair, and include a typical high school prom pun. Coat it with aphid milk to really make her mouth water.

Step Three: Practice your kissing in the mirror – make sure to focus on sticking your lips past your mandibles. Girls like that.

Step Four: Believe in yourself. You are a handsome half-man/half-ant hybrid who deserves to find love. You have spent your whole life being ashamed of your hybrid appearance, but that ends now. Throw away the Von Dutch trucker hat you used to hide your antennas under. Wear a muscle tee – show off those stick-like human arms, even if they can only hold three times your weight. Heck, if dad bods can be in, so can your thorax. It’s go time.

Step Five: Identify your biggest competition. It might be Mariah Michael’s big dumb boyfriend, Buck Peterson. Hypothetically. Or maybe, like, some really hot ant. 

Step Six: Hire your ant cousin, Ant 74,463, and his best friend, Ant 9,101, to sneak into Buck’s room at night and lift him off his mattress. They are the strongest ants in the colony and will do this stealthily. Bring him to the queen as he slumbers.

Step Seven: Approach your crush, Mariah Michael. Confidently state that you are probably her only option. When she tells you that she has a boyfriend named Buck Peterson, tell her that you think that Buck just might be in an ant hill at the moment. Make sure you don’t wink knowingly – not because you’re playing coy but because ants don’t have eyelids. When she acts all confused, get on one knee and show her the sign you made (see Step 2) that says “Be my Queen, bear my larvae. Prom?”

Step Eight: When the girl of your dreams begins to sob and runs down the hall in a panic, go home and get a good cry in too, and for once try to not think of her sing-songy voice. Hopefully, at this point your 100% ant dad will enter the room to check on you. “Hey buckaroo,” he’ll say awkwardly. You’ll sniffle and say that you’re fine but he’ll look at you with those tiny, glossy eyes and his antenna will twitch comfortingly against your foot and you’ll realize something. Even though you feel so incredibly alone, you only have it half as bad as your full ant dad had it.

You’ll inquire with a quavering voice and your father will tell you about the first time that he was stepped on by your 100% human mother’s high heels while attempting to get her attention with a song. He’ll get lost in his own words while describing the first time he tried to kiss her while they laid in the grass outside of the Natural History Museum. You’ll notice that you’ve stopped crying while you laugh together as he recalls the awkward first meeting of your grandpa who, at the time, was the town’s leading exterminator, Pest Control Carlos.

Then you’ll have to calm him down when he yet again brings up Bee Movie. “Stupid Seinfeld, stole my life story! Made me a damn bee!!”

Step Nine: Don’t forget to pick up the tux! 

Step Ten: Fuelled with confidence from your ant dad, return to Mariah Michael. Once you find her at her home, tell her that her legally-declared-missing boyfriend has a big surprise for her at the gymnasium. Once you get there, take a look around, look at your watch and say, “Huh, he said he’d be here. Anyway, want to dance?” Then, relax. You did it buddy.

Step Eleven: Have the most wonderful night of your entire life before Mariah Michael figures out your plot. It may only last a couple of minutes but you’ll look back on this moment forever. Dad would be so proud.

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