Every time I go shopping or drive down a street with stores, I go home wondering where it is that all these women go. Not the women on the street, but the women who are buying all of the formal gowns I see in store windows all over town.

I can walk two blocks from my house and choose from a half dozen exquisite gowns in the window of the first store I come to. If I walk just a few blocks more, I can comparison shop in at least four different stores dealing almost exclusively in formal wear. It reminds me of March in the United States, when all the stores bring out their prom dresses.

Except that this is June and prom season is over. Indeed, as best I can discover, prom season doesn’t even exist in Mexico, which seems to have managed to avoid that U.S. rite of passage that fills my Facebook feed every May with pictures of high school girls playing dress up.

“So, who is it,” I can’t help wondering, “that’s wearing all those formals I see in the store windows? And why is it easier to find a store selling formal wear than to find one selling a box of Bisquick? Or yellow cheese?” 

It’s not like I see people walking down the street in formal gowns on a daily basis. Or ever. Sure, there are a lot of little girls with perfect bows in perfect hair (which my girls never had), and it’s not unusual to see women wearing higher heels than I could ever walk in. But satin and sequins? I haven’t seen any.

Most of the people I pass don’t look all that different from me. Maybe a little more put together. And maybe wearing something a little more stylish than the flip-flops I rarely take off. Maybe even remembering to put on their make-up before leaving the house that morning. But, still, I never feel out of place. At least not completely. Not like I would in one of those formal wear stores.

I had the requisite prom dresses in high school and the requisite closet full of bridesmaid dresses in my twenties. But since then, nada. Not a single formal gown in my closet and not a single invitation that a simple black dress didn’t serve me just fine.

“So, who is it,” I ask again, “that’s buying all those formals? Where are they going, and why haven’t I been invited?”

Not that I’d have anything to wear. Although I do have this long flannel nightgown ...