I CANNOT HAVE THIS DANCE!

There's a restaurant in Chinatown that announces on its signboard that dancing nights are Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and admission/participation is $13.oo, includes dinner. No, this is not young people hiphopping to the dulcet strains of Crimebucket Z and the East Side Hooligans, or even slow romantic music from another era in some Christian hinterland, carefully chaperoned by the meddlesome nunsisters of the local convent trying to get a new generation of church folk to eventually create a newer generation. Of church folk.


This is dancing for old folks. Ballroom. With nice clothes.

I don't dance, and I'm not old by any means.

But it sounds like fun.


It could be an educational new experience, and culturally enriching.
It is quite possible that they do the music I like.
I found myself objecting the other night to younger people caterwauling the lyrics of a song I never could stand at a karaoke place, and wishing for common sense, sobriety, and modulation.


I am not, strictly speaking, youngish either.
Sort of springy, in between.

All things considered I might enjoy being the comparatively tall white wallflower watching as seventy and eighty year old smaller people gracefully glide around on the dance floor to restrained rhythms from the golden age of whatever that style is. I'd dress appropriately -- might have to knock a Mormon missionary unconscious and steal his clothes in order to do so, as my dark blue business suite doesn't quite seem right, and the tweedy blazer and tan slacks are too casual -- and then ooze discreetly out into the night at a relatively early hour, before everyone else.
Despite being distinctly Caucasian, I look like a quiet and restrained (non-threatening) middle-aged dude, AND my somewhat passable ability to speak Cantonese would further put them at their ease. And heck, it's a large space. Plenty of sideline in which to hide.

Again: I don't dance. Neither the waltz nor the cha cha cha.
Or anything even approaching those.
Not even the rumba.


The worst that could happen is an elderly person assuming I'm someone's son, and telling me that they remember when I was only so tall, and got in trouble for stupendous delinquency.
Do I play along, so as not embarrass them?
Or point out what should be obvious?
I am, um, not Chinese at all.
Not even slightly.




But the clothing is still the major problem. I do not relish beating up some poor Mormon missionary and stripping them down to their underwear.
Maybe I can buy that crap off the internet?




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