Esta noche bailamos!

Alright, so, I don't dance...like ever!

It's just not something I'm able to do. I'm too conscious of my own movements. When I've tried to dance in the past, it was just a horrible out of control situation with my brain trying to regulate everything I was doing:

"Hey, Left Leg, stop that! Where the hell are you going, Right Arm?! Hips! Don't you dare thrust again!"

It's exhausting, and to other people, it probably looks like a cross between someone having a seizure and someone that has walked face-first into a large spiderweb that no one else can see. I've slow-danced a few times, and I've been grinded a couple times, but that doesn't really count. I don't, can't, and won't dance. End of discussion.

So, here's the story:
My buddy and I went to a friend's wedding this past weekend. It was fun. Nice ceremony. Great reception. Delicious food. Everything was great. What I want to tell you about though, is the dance that took place after the wedding.

The bride and her family are Spanish, you see, and so half of the attendees were also Spanish. There were some white people there too, the husband's side, some guests, but there's just something about us white people, we tend to become background when there are people with an actual culture present.

My buddy and I, we are both very white. We've got skin the colour of cooked-salmon. The skin of Irish men who sit around too much and get flustered over little things very easily. Either one of us would probably allow a great number of horrible things happen to our loved ones before we would even think about approaching a dance floor. We're just in the wrong place this evening. We don't even look like we're at the wedding, we look like security guards, really useless security guards.

Now, when I tell you that the Spanish people at this wedding enjoyed dancing, please don't think I'm just saying "Hey, these people like to dance".  No, no, you need to listen to me! These people look like they're under some sort of spell. Remember in that movie about the witches, Hocus Pocus, when Bette Midler curses all the adults of the town into dancing uncontrollably? That's exactly what this looks like, except, what's even more supernatural, is the fact that ALL of these people can dance like they've been professionally trained, and it's not just the adults! Whether they're seven or seventy, pregnant, on crutches, missing legs, it doesn't fucking matter, these people are all on FIRE! The white people are clearly outmatched. The DJ played some country, and some rock, but that was more or less just to give the Spanish people a chance to pee, smoke, or breathe. It was the only time they stopped.

My buddy and I, we're invited out to dance a number of times, but I can promise you that there was no way that shit was happening.

"We don't dance" we say again and again. We should have brought signs.

"There's no better time to start, come on!" one girl says when she stops to chat with us. [NOTE: While she talked with us, she continued to dance where she was standing, not even joking]

With regards to her point that there would be no better time to start dancing, I have to disagree. A good time to learn to dance would be alone in front of a forgiving mirror, or with a small group of beginners in a controlled setting, faaaar away from the public eye, or maybe even in a school for the blind. The absolute worst time to take up dancing would be right now, out there on the dance floor with all these people who are definitely not fucking around.

No, I'm sorry! If I go out there now, I'll be trampled under the fast-moving shoes of a cat named Paco who, as near as I can tell, made a deal with the Devil at some point in his life to be able to destroy that dancefloor any time he chooses. The soles of this guy's shoes have to be about 150 degrees right now. He's been going for 40 minutes and hasn't even broken a sweat. Even if he did break a sweat, it would probably just be a few drops of wine. The wine is like gasoline for their legs! The alcohol doesn't seem to slow them down or make them clumsy, on the contrary, it's enhancing their already amazing abilities. I find myself seriously wondering if there's ever been a time when a dance floor has caught fire due to the friction-heat of shoes. If it ever has, I bet Paco was there for it, and I bet he kept dancing.

There was a point at which I realized I had had too much to drink, and I told my buddy it was time to go. He agreed. You see, the danger is that we get too drunk to remember that we can't dance, and get out there to try. Ugh, I feel sick just thinking about it. It would have been awful. They probably would have stopped the music, turned on all the lights, and made an announcement like, "For their own safety, the Vanillas are reminded to stay off the dance floor". Either that, or Paco would see us struggling out there and be forced to deliver a coup de grace to each of us with a tear in his eye.

I mean no disrespect, Spanish people. If I could be born into a different culture or race, I'd pick something Spanish, for sure. I'm just generalizing and propagating a stereotype here. I'm sure there are lots of Spanish people who can't dance; but, I'm also sure those ones get banished from their communities like lepers or werewolves.

Whatever happens to those Spanish people who can't dance, I know one thing, they certainly didn't get invited to this party.