With blasting music and hour long lines, the Homecoming dance had me wishing most of the night that I was home.

The dinner, photos, and ride were fine. Prior to the actual homecoming dance, my date, along with his friends, paid to have a limousine driver take us to downtown Riverside. Before the dance, we ate at a restaurant near the Riverside Municipal Auditorium. Unfortunately, toward the end of our meal, our driver came in to tell us he had other clients to drive, leaving us to walk to the auditorium.

Despite having to walk nearly a mile in heels, I, along with my group, surprisingly arrived at the venue early. At the entrance, we were told to remove our jackets, empty our pockets, and open our purses, which was a bit vexing and unnecessary since it was so dark that, they could barely see what they were searching through. The security guards further checked our bodies for any “hazardous items.” This was just the beginning of the uncomfortable night ahead of us.

When I entered the auditorium, I noticed that it was nearly empty. There were tables scattered on the sides of the dance floor and refreshment tables near the auditorium’s seating area. Not many people knew about the karaoke area and photo room since the rooms were secluded downstairs, so luckily, I was able to take pictures at the venue without much waiting involved.

There wasn’t much to do outside the auditorium either. There was only one photo booth, and the line was a mess, to say the least. People would join in the side and cut others off, while others would form large groups and hoard the photobooth for unnecessary periods of time. The photo booth also had a technical malfunction, choosing the black and white filter actually made your photos print out in color while the color filter made your photos print out black and white.

I’m not much of a music person, but it was clear that the DJ’s choice of music was evidently inappropriate. The playlist spitted out provocative terms and euphemisms, which resulted in equally immodest dancing. Grinding and other forms of modern dancing, which were prohibited in the consent paper all students had to sign to attend the dance, were in every corner of the room. The combination of wrong music choices and the staff’s nonchalance toward the dancing created an extremely uncomfortable mess, at least for me.

After escaping the raucous dance floor, my date and I went out to the balcony to talk.

“I’m anti-homecoming now” he said, and I nodded my head in agreement.

In the end, I went back to the dance floor to slow dance with my date, which finally concluded the hectic yet memorable night.

My first homecoming dance was definitely eventful. However, I expected much more from the event. The dance lasted four hours, yet my date and I spent half our time waiting in the photobooth line. I enjoyed getting dressed up for the event and taking pictures, but despised the uncomfortable setting caused by the awful music and lack of activities to do at the venue.