No more! Here are creative dance ask-outs that I participated in. I went to six high school dances in all and frankly, I am shocked I can't remember all the ways in which the asking/answering happened (see vivid memory, above).
"In case you were 'wondering,'...yes, I'll go to the dance with you." This was printed on a roll of paper concealed inside a loaf of Wonder Bread (the center of each piece of bread had been cut out with a cookie cutter), and then left on the boy's doorstep.
The box of Alpha-Bits. See, the way it works is, you take out a Y, E, and S (or N and O, I guess), color them with dark permanent marker, and then put them back in the box. Then you give the box of cereal to the person who asked you to the dance and they have to figure it out.
Sticky stars. I snuck into the boy's room while he was at school and spelled out MORP? in sticky colored stars on his ceiling. When he answered, he spelled it out on my ceiling in glow-in-the-dark stars. No star-related puns were employed, as far as I can remember.
The series of coordinated fake-outs. This is my favorite one. One day during math class my junior year, just before prom (I think), something like four different guys came in over the space of an hour and asked me with feigned sincerity to go with them to the dance. I think most of them were even named Chris, which was a nice touch. They each had flowers and everything. The first guy to ask was so unexpected that I suspected right away that it was a setup for someone else asking me...and I was right. Good thing I didn't say yes to the decoy! Instead, I had to be embarrassed and say no to each one until the guy who was actually asking me came in and asked me in front of everyone.
I wish I could remember the rest! As ridiculous as it seems now, it was usually a fun tradition to take part in. I don't even think it was a distinctly Mormon practice - I seem to remember lots of people participating in it.
Sometimes the creative asking bordered on the destructive/annoying, though. I recall legends of bedrooms filled to the ceiling with crumpled newspaper that had to be unwrapped or balloons that had to be popped to find the answer. Or the bathtub filled with pee and a note that said, "Ur-ine-vited to the dance with me!" OK, maybe my friend Julee and I made that one up...
What creative ask-out practices did you participate in?