One of the nice things about being a funnies editor is that I don’t have to follow any of the normal rules in journalism. So before we jump into the “meat” of the article, I would just like to begin things with a bit of “gristle”: Elise Jantz, my awesome 11-year-old sister, scored a goal in a soccer game! They lost by like 10 goals, but who cares! Go Elise!

Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, the rest of the article. So… dancing!

Last Friday was a momentous day for me: I went swing dancing for the very first time, downtown at First Fridays. My rationale was this: I like swings, I’m not so sure about dancing, but hey, the swings ought to make up for it.

Also, if there are swings then there’s probably more play equipment! And a cherry on top of the whole situation was that it was raining at this outdoor event, giving me the perfect opportunity to rock some sick rain pants I found at the Depot! My cup ranneth over with confidence and excitement.

That evening, as I swaggered into the venue, a few things struck me immediately. 1) It was not raining 2) this was because there was a roof 3) there were no swings 4) nor was there any other sort of play equipment 5) in lieu of a playground, there was a large stage 6) not only was there a large stage, there were also a number of seats facing the stage 7) said seats were occupied by people and 8) said stage was occupied by a number of people confidently executing body movements that appeared to my now dinner-plate-sized eyes to be several orders of magnitude more complicated than rocket science. Taking all these things in, I heard a “pssssssss,” as my confidence dribblethed out of my metaphorical cup directly into my, now redundant, rain pants.

Somehow I found my way onstage, and was surprised to learn that I’m quite good at many aspects of swing dancing! In particular, I excelled at:

Sweating. Fun fact: rain pants hold water in just as well as they keep it out! #saygoodbyetoevaporativecooling

Counting to any number but four

Stepping on my partner’s toes

Holding my arms wrong

Following. As a leader, this made things interesting

Apologizing

Enviously watching people who know what they’re doing

Holding my arms wrong, but in a different way

In all seriousness, though, I enjoyed the evening a lot and I was sorry when it ended. I’ll definitely find time to go to Swing Dance Club in the future.

But next time, the rain pants will stay buried in my wardrobe.

 

*Joke credit to Sawyer Biddle