Dancing with Chris

So, I have coerced Chris into taking dancing lessons for the last few months.  He is actually really good.  He would never own up to it, but he is and I really like dancing with him.  Anyway, our dance instructor comes directly to our house so it is not necessarily a social thing.  One day she suggests to us that we actually go to a dance.  She says 'so, I suggest to you that you actually go to a dance.'  We, and by we, I mean 'I,'  instantly think this is a great idea.  I was imagining just a group of her students - probably 20-30 people in some small place with room enough and a nice stereo system of some sort.  She said there would be live music so in my mind I replaced the CD player with some lady with a keyboard and maybe someone with a guitar or singing.  simple.  Why not?

The day comes.  We have practiced our foxtrot, brushed up our swing and thought about dusting off our rumba.Chris puts on a button-down, I throw on some black slacks, heels and voila!  We're off.

The first odd thing we noticed was how many people there were parked in the parking lot.  There were a lot.  When we walked in it was instantly recognizable that we were definitely out of place.  We approached the ticket booth that was being run by an elderly woman with the quintessential white poof grandma hair.  She politely asked Chris where his jacket was. 'huh?' and his tie... oh.  Our dance instructor hadn't mentioned a dress code.  Where do you go anymore that requires a jacket?  Pants, sure, but a jacket was a first.  Then someone offered to lend me a dress... Was that a requirement, too?  and as I spoke to the elderly women passing by me into the dance hall I could only imagine what that dress would look like.  It was a sweet offer, but they assured me that my slacks would still be ok.  The woman offered to find a jacket that Chris could borrow, and he reluctantly consented.

That good man, he was already so uncomfortable with the whole dancing in public thing.  We were easily 25 years younger than the one or two of the youngest... probably 35 years younger than the average person there, so that didn't help.  Then the jacket thing... While someone went to track down a jacket for Chris, we went to pay for out tickets... and we had brought some cash to get in, but not enough, so we asked if they took any type of credit... and we were just so out of place.  We decided we would try to find an ATM and come back.

Luckily there was a small department store not far away and we were able to buy a tie and get some cash, but I could tell... I wasn't sure that Chris was ever going to do anything like this again with me.  We pulled back up to the dance hall.  The parking had filled, so we pulled around back.  There must have been some very serious hippy event going on nearby because there was a few women and a man chatting back there, dressed in ty-dye, bandannas, puka shell necklaces and bell bottoms.  We waved at the hippies - which were maybe only 15 years our senior and went to join the seiner seniors.

We were now easily 45 minutes into the event and just paying for our tickets.  They had talked about it, and since the majority of people were taking off their jackets when they got in, they allowed Chris to go in with just his new tie.


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