Last week the Onion published a satire piece with the title Attempt To Recreate Incredible Night Out From Youth Works Perfectly:

MADISON, WI—An attempt by old college friends to relive a fun night out from more than 20 years ago went perfectly Friday, with no one involved experiencing the innate futility of trying to recapture the glory days of their youth, sources later confirmed.

The group of former best friends—who met outside their old sophomore dorm, went to the Plaza Tavern, drank $2 pitchers of beer, and sang along to the 1990 Jane’s Addiction song “Been Caught Stealing”—said they felt as hopeful and invincible as they did two decades earlier, and that at no point did any one of them stop to think that what they were doing was absolutely pathetic.

In what might just be a coincidence, the Times has a story from Green Bay Wisconsin about adults who are re-doing their senior proms, titled A Second Shot to Have the Best Night of Their Lives.

This is prime prom season, the time when teenage girls spend hundreds of dollars for what they hope will be the perfect night. But in an increasing number of cities those teenagers searching for their prom gowns are brushing elbows with grown women, some at least double their age. Adult proms have already taken place in Fort Wayne, Ind., and Beverly, Mass., this year. Others are planned in Decatur, Ga., and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

These are not reunions of former high school classmates eager to relive the prom night they had together. A vast majority of revelers are in their 20s and 30s, although a few are in their early 60s and are simply excited at the prospect of getting decked out and dancing — and voting for the night’s king and queen.

But the adult version, as evidenced here in Green Bay, featured much of the same awkwardness as the high school prom, made only more tolerable with the addition of alcohol. Inside a ballroom, there was the woman wondering aloud all night about where her date had disappeared to. At another table sat the cluster who came for a fun girls’ night out but looked rather forlorn. In a corner of the dance floor, a woman had her arms draped around her date’s neck, while his hands wandered down her waist in a way that would surely make a chaperone blush.

People always try to recapture the happiness of their youths. That is why people have such nostalgia for their college experiences, and alma matters. Things were simpler and happier back then. No families. No jobs. No responsibilities. Why wouldn’t people want to rekindle that verve?

It’s funny when the Onion imitates reality.