The Dance Floor Revisted

I've talked about the peculiarities of the dance floor in the past. I'm a little late getting around to writing this one, but after visiting a club a couple months ago, I've got a few more observations to add. So here we go....

The evening begins and I'm at a local nightclub with some friends. The band was quite good and, by their second or third song, they had already attracted a pretty decent crowd to the dance floor. Most the crowd went through the motions, throwing their arms in the air (like they just didn't care). But, as expected, there were a special few who stood out from the rest of the crowd.

The first person that drew my attention was a guy who resembled a pint-size version of Joe Pesci. Working his arms like he was skiing down a black diamond mountain, he made his way through the thick mass of dancing women. Every now and then, one of the women would lock eyes with him. This would essentially trap the poor girl into dancing with lil' Joe until the end of the song. At one point, he approached an attractive tall blonde woman. The vertical contrast created a moment of inevitable awkwardness. Sizing up the Amazon woman with arms a-flailing, it almost looked like he was going to climb her. The whole scene made me think of the movie Shallow Hal.

The next standout was an elderly man who looked like Grampa Munster (or an old version of Ted Cruz). It seems like every club has one of these guys. Even though he annoys most of the women, they always feel obligated to say, "Ahh, you're so cute." And of course, this only encourages him to cling on even longer. The smarter women just ignore him and then, although slightly discouraged, he'll move on to his next potential victim.

And then there are the "players"...... A couple of guys who looked like the lead characters in "A Night At The Roxbury" stood along the side of the dance floor. The middle-aged duo methodically scanned the room for inebriated women. Oozing with confidence, the guys bopped their gelled heads rhythmically to the beat of the music. Occasionally, a woman would look at them and smile. The guys would respond by pointing at the woman and then reciprocating with their own Crest White-strip smiles. They would then trade a few phony laughs before moving out to meet the girl on the dance floor.

The two guys creeped me out a little. They were dressed like they just appeared out of a time warp from 1977. One of the guys wore a silk shirt which was unbuttoned sufficiently enough to display an ample amount of chest hair. He also wore a heavy gold chain which came alive under the colorful rotating house lights. Not to be outdone, the other guy had a dangling gold bracelet which seemed to dance every time the guy took a sip of his drink.

Although these guys were probably harmless, my twisted mind imagined them slipping a couple ruffies into an unsuspecting girl's drink. And when the club closed at 2 am, I saw the Saturday Night Fever duo escorting the inevitable victim to their custom van where God only knows what would happen....

Just then, a woman interrupts the disturbing image by asking me to dance. This happened to be a woman whom the two gigolos had been hitting on moments earlier. Did she really want to dance with me? Or was this her way of asking me to save her? Regardless, I respectfully declined her invitation for a number of reasons. Number one, when I hit the dance floor, I'm like a bull in a china shop. Secondly, I'm married and I certainly didn't want to stir up any unnecessary controversy (even if it was to save a damsel in distress). And lastly, I didn't want to piss off the Bopsie Twins. For all I knew, they would plot revenge and I would be the one who was duct-taped in the back of their van at the end of the night.

The end of the night finally came around and everyone exited the club safely (I assume). To sum up the evening, it was rather entertaining.....

kw