You know those friends who keep life interesting? Everyone has them. Your fun friends, the ones with whom anything can happen. You never know. You could show up to hang out and 30 of their closest family members are in town or there’re fireworks or something exciting in a blender. Everyone needs a fun friend, the kind whose motto is “the more the merrier.”
So when one of my fun friends texted me to come over because her mother-in-law had ordered a dancer for her husband for his birthday, my interest was piqued. What kind of dancer? Are we “we watch dancers” kind of people, I mean, other than The Nutcracker? What kind of nutcracker dance was this? Exactly what nuts were getting cracked?
She explained it was like a candygram but with a dancer. Listen, I saw the naughty nurse from Ferris Bueller’s Day Offso was it that kind of gram? A lot can happen when you answer your doorbell, is all I’m saying.
And then my friend asked if I’d bring the kids. Okay look, I’m fairly lenient with the culture exposure but seriously what kind of dancer is this? But I mean, I’m always looking for things to do with the kids, and also I sensed the underlying desperation in my friend’s text. On the surface, it appeared nonchalant, but really she was begging for strength in numbers. I am here for my friends, whether they need a meal when they’ve had a baby or they need me to provide a human awkwardness buffer. I loaded up the kids in the van and headed over, possibly for an entertaining afternoon or possibly to expose them to a little afternoon soft porn.
The husbands kept the birthday boy distracted in the backyard while the wives convened on the front lawn with all the kids waiting in anticipation of … what? We live in the deep, deep suburbs, so birthday dancers from the city have a long drive. She was an hour late and it was 90 degrees in the Georgia afternoon.
My teen sighed exasperatedly and asked what, like, we were even, legit like, waiting for? I leaned toward her conspiratorially and explained, “There’s a dancer coming to do a dance and we don’t know if this is like a family-friendly dance situation or a rated R bachelor party situation so it’s very exciting. This could go south really fast.” READ MORE
