The Show of All Shows...

Do you remember growing up and going to all those Stake Youth Dances or Junior High Stomps? I do, and I remember hating them! I've never been a lover of dance. I guess you could say I have always been a little uncomfortable with the idea of people watching me make a fool out of myself. I know that's what you're supposed to do during the teenage years, but dancing was just never my thing. I never understood why people would want to flop their body around in completely unnatural ways. But while I never enjoyed the art of dancing, I have always found great delight in the art of observing. And over the years I have come to appreciate REAL dancing (Dancing with the Stars, anyone?). Watching people who know how to dance can be very fun and sometimes even beautiful. But, it's not often that you find that quality of dance at an LDS church activity, where people only seem to know how to flop around and make fools of themselves. But, I have to admit that though I don't enjoy being the one on the dance floor, observing others can be an enjoyment all it's own. Case in point:

Saturday night I went with some friends to an institute activity. We thought it was supposed to just be a drive-in movie, but before the movie they had dinner and dancing. Well, we emerged from our car to partake of the deliciousness of the hotdogs, but quickly retreated back to the vehicle to avoid the dancing. We were all a little unnerved by the fact that everyone out there was 10 years younger than us and we didn't have much desire to re-live those awkward moments of our youth. So, while we waited for the movie to start, we sat in our car and observed (amid great humor, I might add) person after person make a complete fool of themselves.

We found such great enjoyment in this, that we even began giving some of the people names:

1 - Gumbi: The kid who could bend in unbendable ways.

2 - Senorita: The woman on a mission to salsa the night away.

3 - Cancun: The lucky man stuck dancing with Senorita, who appeared to have just come back from some tropical Island.

4 -Manpri: You know this person. The guy who is either brave enough or gay enough to wear capris.

5 - Tighty-whitey: The guy who wore those freakishly tight girl pants. He was in our direct line of vision and what an awkward three minutes that was! We could see everything possibly bulging out of those pants (keys, wallet, and whatever else I won't mention). These pants were so tight we could even see his bunched up underwear line! We were relieved when he left the dance floor.

6 - Knockout: The girl who about had her head taken off by her dance partner.

7 - Jackie and Owen: The delightsome duo who happened to take notice of us sitting in our car and tried to coax us out. It didn't work, much to their dismay. If Jackie would have thrown some martial arts into his dance routine, maybe I would have changed my mind. :)

8 - Rewind: The awkward couple who was attempting to dance in the parking lot outside of the designated dance area. We had to turn around ("Rewind") to watch them dance.

9 - Stilts: An extremely tall guy at the dance.

10 - Stilts Returns: Another extremely tall guy.

11 - Stilts Strikes Back (with Sliver): Yet another extremely tall guy who was dancing with a girl half his size (why we called her Sliver).

12 - Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb: Two girls that appeared to be about 10 years old, crashing the dance.

13 - Pepe Le Pew: An Asian guy with an incredibly large white streak down the middle of his hair.

14 - Happy Feet: The guy whose feet kept on moving.

15 - A Juan: A Mexican guy who was checking us out when we pulled up next to him at a stop light. My friend said we'd call him "Juan" since he was Mexican. His license plate said "A1" so then she thought we should call him "A1". After a quiet, thoughtful moment she burst out with "A JUAN!"

Oh, how was the movie? Well, I couldn't tell you. The dance went so long that by the time they got around to starting the movie, we decided to take off. It kind of defeated the purpose of going to the activity in the first place, but I think we hit a grand-slam with that dance. It was the show of all shows!