The highlight of dancing had to be the two seconds of French Toast that Jean accidentally played. S hates that dance. We did not do it, but everyone laughed about it. Everyone, that is, except all the new people who didn't know what the song was. And that's how we started dance class this session: introducing ourselves and learning about the new people, two of which Jean didn't even notice because she completely skipped them when we went around the room and the two Irish-Catholic sisters (literal sisters, not nuns) had to point them out and say, Them too!
The woman who had lent me the pen was in class along with her two friends and one of their daughters. The other ladies were a bit older. There were also two younger women, maybe five to seven years older than me and S, even though one of them thought we were 17 or 18 (okay, she thought S was 17 and I was 18). I actually didn't even realize she was asking our ages because her guess was so low.
As S pointed out, our t-shirts didn't help the guessing. I was wearing my lilac Little Miss Contrary shirt. She was wearing her teal and pink Sugar U tee. Yup, we're adults.
The women began talking to us because they were having a little trouble picking up the dances. When we were all turned to the back wall, we heard the usual, Look at the girls. Yup, we're still girls, too. Then when a few dances were over, S was like, Now there's pointing, and before I saw the pointing, here came the two women, telling us, We're just going to dance behind you and you can laugh at us because we're retarded. S told them not to stand behind us because they would have no one in front of them when they turned. They answered that they would then run behind us. Heh heh. I like plans like those. I told them that once they learned five basic steps, they would know the dances. They asked, which steps? We answered: grapevine, scissor, coaster, lindy, and step-together-step. Of course, none of this will be helpful as Jean renames all the steps every session.
No, wait, the highlight of dancing was Jean walking in late. Like really late. Like 8:01 late. She usually starts our 8:00 class at, oh, you know, 6:47. So when she walked in, there was clapping. Then lights came on. Jean knows how to make an entrance.
The clique clapped the loudest and there was much conversation. I grabbed S's yellow receipt to bring over to the pile on the side where they were being collected by the blonde woman in the clique because she'd just kind of started collecting them. Then the little Asian woman with the interesting shirts asked me to drop hers on the pile as well. Oh, I hadn't realized we were that close that we ask favors of each other, but okay.
Ah, wrong again--the real highlight was Jean's adjustment of her microphone. The mic pack never works ever. She usually dances with it in her hand and calls out the steps not into the speaker part. This night she had a different pack that she had adjusted to stream in static, so every time she asked if it was loud enough, S and I would say, Yup the static's just fine. Her music had two settings, too loud and too soft. You know, perfect for dancing.
We danced a few dances we already knew. We means the people who were returning: the clique, the Catholics, the woman who wrapped the coat around her head that one time when the room smelled, the Asian woman who is apparently my favor friend, the woman who wore a hair clip that dangled off her head instead of holding back her hair, one of the angry dancers who S reminded me has chest pains, the woman who usually wears some sort of baseball shirt, and the woman S was convinced was new last session even though she's been dancing with us for at least two. Ahhhh, it's good to be back with the gang. The class was pretty full, and somehow, S and I kept getting pushed further back into the corner. That's where all the moths hang out. Yeah, perhaps the return of the escape of the moth is in store.
Okay, no. Hold. Everything. The absolute best part of the night was Jean's instruction to HOooaoooooaooor.
I shit you not, she made that sound. We were doing rumba boxes and turning and then she said to HOooaoooooaooor. It wasn't a problem with the mic. It wasn't a problem with my hearing. That's the sound that came out of Jean when she was teaching us a dance called Martini something or other. She taught us two dances, but that's the only one I remember the name of and I can retain only so much in my head when I'm distracted by HOooaoooooaooor. Which is my new favorite dance step ever.
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