ye olde crapfest

last friday, i did a favor for my cool boss, aka "big daddy," and chauffered his 10-year-old daughter from her school dance to her dance lessons. my instructions were to show up at the school at 6pm, wander in, find hayley, and shuttle her to the traci lords jazz explosion (not the dance school's real name, but it's shockingly similar) over by the mall. no problem--a twenty minute ordeal, at most. but little did i know, it would be one of the strangest and most surreal experiences in my recent memory.

first, the school. it's been a hella long time since i was in a high school, which is built for normal-sized people, but this...this was an elementary school with its eight foot ceilings and water fountains at my knee level and lockers designed for leprechauns. oh, and the entire place reeked of piss. i think i smelled poo and sweat and vomit as well, but the overwhelming aroma of ammonia-laden urine took control of my senses and made it hard for me to discern one nasty from the other.

so i made my way through the maze of hallways and ramps (i'm assuming the ramps are for the wheelchair kids, and the little plastic strips that cut across the floor are speedbumps for said wheelchair kids, to make sure they don't get to wheeling too fast), guided by the sweet and surprising sounds of 1980s-era michael jackson (rock with you, if you must know) and eventually found my way to the gym. i was a little early, so i just ducked in and hung back in a corner with the rest of the "parents."

i watched as a hundred or more fourth through eigth graders cut the proverbial rug to not one, but TWO michael jackson songs (rock with you was followed by the indomitable thriller). some of them tried to do the thriller dance--it was all loosey-goosey to say the least, but it was admirable of them to attempt it. so then, the dj, a guy about my age who looks like this kid ernie that my eighth-grade boyfriend used to harrass on the bus, he says "alright kids, it's about time to wrap things up...i know there's a lot of you hip-hop fans who want me to play somethin' bumpin', and i gotta close it up with a slow song, so we'll do all that. but first, here's one for all you rockers!" and he cues up track one of nirvana's nevermind and all of a sudden, these hundred or more fourth through eighth graders are pogoing to the sounds of smells like teen spirit. and i'm standing there in the corner, smelling the pee and laughing my ass off at the irony i've attributed to the situation.

so, the kids smelled their teen spirit, and then john q. dj said "alright everybody, shake your tailfeather!" and the pogoing, chorus chanting grunge-heads did a complete 180 and began to gyrate to the sounds of mssrs. diddy, lee, and nelly. there was bumping, there was grinding, there was shaking of the tailfeather. and many "woots" and "yeahs" could be heard above the sounds of the thumptastic bass. lines were formed, which i thought they only did in country and western bars, but NO NO this is the new millenium, and urban line dancing and hick hop are The New Hotness.

there were circles, like in all the prom scenes from every movie you've ever seen, and people putting themselves into the middles of the circles to show off their super-sweet moves. there was what hayley later told me is called "lap dancing," which is when a girl, "like, dances with her lap and butt and grinds around and then a boy, he like, comes up behind her and grinds his lap on her butt." and all this time i thought lap dancing was something that involved a chair or something, money changing hands and pitiable levels of blatant insecurity--silly me, it's just a game the kids are playing with their laps and butts!

well, pop songs are only three minutes long, so the tailfeather-shaking couldn't last forever. and when that was over, it was time for The Last Song. The Slow One. and i watched a hundred or more fourth through eighth graders clear the dance floor in what seemed like nanoseconds. when the dust cleared, there were three--yes, THREE-- couples left standing on the floor. the boys were all horrifically tall, the girls all had braces and way too much makeup on. they had their hands dangled around each others' necks and waists, and they shuffled in nearly-circular patterns in just about the same place, no doubt "feeling the love" that one feels when listening to the romantic words of kenny chesney and also doing everything within their power to avoid looking at each other. they looked up, they looked down, they looked all around, but not once did i see one of these three couples look at their partner. later, i asked hayley if there were only three couples in the school, as i seemed to remember the 6th through 8th grade years as being a period of rampant "going steady."

she replied "oh, yeah, there's more girls with boyfriends, but they're all the hoochies and they're at competition today."

"hootchie competition?" says me.

"no no! dance competition! all the hootchies are dancers!" she exclaimed.

"or is it that all the dancers are hootchies?" i wondered, as i gave her the most knowing look i could muster.

ah, the joys of youth. i felt sentimental, i felt old, i felt way cooler than ALL those kids, so HA! it was actually a very cool experience. i had gotten a little worried that the post-columbine, post 9-11 thing had turned the schools of america into whiny little pussy factories. not true! these kids looked just like the rapscallions and numbnutzes i grew up with, right down to the dude running around the gym making fart noises with his hands. and they have been raised to recognize the glory of 80s michael jackson and teen spirit! so i guess there's hope after all.

just as long as they start wiping their asses and aiming for the bowl, that is. that whole "smelling of pee" thing doesn't go over well with the ladies when you get older, gents. trust me.