I don’t dance. I really don’t. Dancing to me is like jumping into a cage full of starving Bengal tigers or eating chocolate pudding with a feces-flinging monkey. I just don’t do it. I also don’t like zoos, for what it’s worth. But last Saturday, I attended a dance party which, for all intents and purposes, at least in my tiny mind, was engineered entirely to get me to shake off the anti-social tendencies I developed as a fetus and get my groove on with sexy young twenty-somethings. If that was the goal of the party’s instigator and my good buddy Hooker, it was wildly successful. Despite my trepidation, I soon figured out that with a drink in hand, I couldn’t dance without spilling, but leaving the dance floor meant talking to people with exaggerated expressions of interest on my face. When I realized I was more likely to say something stupid off the dance floor than do something stupid on it, I did the math and came up with several integers that, given an equivalent letter status, spelled out A-W-E-S-O-M-E in a big way.
Call me a dance newbie, call me a neophyte with a passion for thrashin’, but I managed to enjoy myself despite my overly white-bread rhythmic qualities. If you stuck me, Albert Einstein, and Jesus in a room booming with indie and pop rock tunes, those two guys would be tearing it up, whilst I would be confined to moving my arms and legs in a way that reminds you of a small woodland animal twitching after it has been run over by a car. Very sad. That’s how pathetic this poor boy is when faced with the overwhelming odds of keeping upright or knocking over valuable living room furniture in his bizarre and graceless gyrations. Trust me, that pony ain’t coming home to no oats, dear friends.
Oddly enough, there were individuals present who did not dance once, and I felt slightly more confident and sure of myself. I even found myself urging them to action, much like the Sons of Liberty did to the colonials long ago when faced with the proposition of more taxation without representation. I played the dance patriot a few times, even got a pinky swear from a girl who refused to dance *this* time, but promised she’d be out fighting the good fight next time around. Like I believed her, but hey, we touched pinkies, so you can’t come out of that without thinking you tha man.
That being said, I don’t doubt that my very strong and tasty custom Screwdriver (with a dash of Cranberry for comfort and an extra twist) contributed to my rather ebbulent experience. Alcohol tends to make me fairly animated, which I guess is my inner clown pounding on the door demanding to be let loose to terrorize kids, but since I’m afraid of clowns, I keep that sucker locked up like a beast. Alcohol is kind of like a telephone call to the people outside those prison walls. “Hey, look at me! I’m a freakin’ clown! I’m an awesome guy, if you would just let me out, you’d see me as the rock star I really am!” All the while I’m shushing the guy, trying to keep him quiet, but the vodka does its thing, and the sweat rolls down and you find a rhythm you didn’t realize you had, and suddenly you’ve got a girl in your grill and JT comes on loud and strong, and you just know you’re not gonna “be so quick to walk away” next time.
At least, that’s what he was yelling when I slammed the door in his face at 2am. Still, we had a rockin’ good time, didn’t we clown? Next time, I might even let him do some tricks. For now, I’m just wondering how scary he is when he’s in full dress clown makeup and shoes. To other people, I mean. I’ve seen him. I know. And that is why I don’t let him out much.