Dance Like a Funky Monkey

I loved NPR's recent The Unger Report, about wedding season being synonymous with his primal fear of being forced out on the dance floor. For the rhythmically-challenged, I can see why this might be more fear-inducing than the dreaded "So, why are you still single?" question you're going to get if you stay seated at the table or park yourself at the bar next to the groom's Uncle Ralph. Nobody wants to be the dancing freak in the wedding video.

It reminded me that I should really share one of my most-requested date stories of all time. At UCLA I took a film production class and met a grad student, whose roommate interned at CAA and who got all sorts of free tickets to everything. He was cute. I think he did set design.

Anyway, he invited me out to see G. Love & Special Sauce (yes, it was like 1994) at a club and picked me up. In his station wagon.

Things were going fine. But during one number, I suddenly realized people in front of us were turning around, looking at something and laughing. Pointing, even. I wasn't sure what the heck they were looking at but I finally decided to find out. A quick glance around and then the horror, the horror!

What were they looking at, you ask? Oh, my date, who was doing what I can only describe as a crazy jig dance.

I shuddered and casually tried to distance myself from him by taking a step to the side. And then, to make things worse, he starting yelling "Woo-hoo! Bring back the funk! We want the funk!"

I stepped further and further away from him, hoping that no one realized I was actually with Crazy Jig Man. (He was violating the sacrosanct tenet of "representing well" that Valerie often espoused on.) My dissociation tactics worked, because eventually another guy offered to buy me a drink.

Moral of the story: better to underdance than flail about spastically at weddings and on first dates.