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I
think I am going to write a book, and I am going to call it
Engineers Don't Dance . For years, I have been trying to get
my engineer husband to dance. "I
don't dance." He'll plead, as I shake my groove thing all around
him. "Please don't make me." Usually
I give into his pleas; he is quite pitiful when he wants to be. He
equates being dragged onto the dance floor to my going to Home Depot; a
painful and unnatural experience. He will dance the "slow
dance"; not much more than a hug with a shuffling of feet, but if
the beat picks up; he beats a trail off the dance floor. Every
year my husband's work place hosts a gala holiday extravaganza;
held at a nearby country club which no one but the golden parachute
crowd could actually belong to; and filled with every amazing food one
can imagine. I look forward to that event like crazy; because
eating is one of my favorite things in life. But the event is
bittersweet; because nothing can bring a girl's spirits crashing to the
ground like a big old bunch of engineers trying to whoop it up at a
party. Because those guys just don't understand the first thing about
it; and that annual holiday festivity always takes a turn towards the
darkside when the music begins. I
am not sure whose idea it was, originally, to have a band. A psychedelic
funk band, no less. Perhaps it was a wife; a wife who enjoyed busting a
move and thought, "why, a live band to dance to would enhance the
holiday party substantially." I
am not sure how to begin here. Because the dude was HILARIOUS but
thought he was a smooth operator, if you get what I mean. He was ALL
OVER THE PLACE but thought that he was tearing up the dance floor. Let
me break it down for you here. There was shimmying of the shoulders
(maybe cute in a 20 year old flapper girl but less so in a bald, skinny
fiftyish engineer), thumb swiveling, hip shaking, and an odd shuffling
of the feet which had a similar effect of ice skating. Except that there
was no ice. It was a similar kind of dancing to that which
"Elaine" did on the "Seinfield" show. Later,
in the dessert room, the conversation among the wives turned to the poor
unfortunate fellow. "Did you see Elaine's brother?" A wife
asked me, as she munched on a miniature cheesecake (I told you the food
is delicious!) She
had no such qualms. "That guy was SO FUNNY! Did you see what he was
doing with his feet?" I
could stand it no longer. "I liked the shoulder shimmy move;
coupled with the thumb action and the little dippy
thing he was doing from time to time. I kept hoping he would look in my
direction because I was laughing like I was at the clown show at the
circus." "Well,
weren't you?" The other wife laughed. And
that is why I need to write the book. You know, Engineers Don't Dance
? Because, the poor guy obviously needed to know that it wasn't his
fault; while his most likely enormous brain was wired to fix any kind of
mechanical, electrical or chemical problem; it simply wasn't equipped to
deal with the complex motion of shaking his booty. It wasn't his fault,
you see, but he simply did not know. No one had ever told him
(shame on his wife for letting him go through the dance of shame), and
therefore, the book needed to be written. I am going to have to get on
it, quick, before more damage is done at the next holiday gathering.
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