Some of these were enjoyable, others, like gymnastics, are not. Through all of this I have always managed to avoid having to take Av to dance class. Dance class is a mom thing. Tutus, tap shoes and all sorts of other women things are involved. It goes in the same category as training bras and her first period. Not my department. That is why you have a mom. Well, evidently, the time of the dance class has changed and Monica can no longer make it to the Y in time on Thursday afternoons so I have been unwillingly handed the reigns to the dance class responsibilities. The good news? It is the same time and day as gymnastics so I get to abandon that nightmare of a class war ever week. The bad news? I have to go to dance class.
Now seems like a good time to clarify something. "Dance class" is not a class that teaches toddlers how to dance. It is a 60-minute free for all where children wear tutus and ballet shoes and occasionally learn a dance move. There is no recital. There is no order. There is no learning.
The teacher, Ms. Joan, is wildly popular among the children. She is very patient and never raises her voice. She also looks like she could bench press a Volkswagen. She leads a Zumba class (I just found out what that was) right before the 'tiny dancers' class begins. Therefore, she is already covered in sweat and riding on whatever sort of exercise high people who work out are supposed to achieve that I have never experienced no matter how long I stare at TLC on the TV in front of the elliptical machine at Planet Fitness. All I feel is pain. ALL I FEEL IS PAIN!
When Zumba ends the toddlers are allowed in to the cold, mirrored dance studio and they all happily run up to sweaty, muscly Ms. Joan and she helps them put their shoes on. At the same time, all of the leftovers from the class, mostly middle aged women and mothers who leave their children in the YMCA child care room, (I always wondered where those kids' parents went) stand around and either support each other's fitness dedication or discuss what they are doing later that day. Then, inevitably, one of them will recognize another mother arriving for the dance class and try to recruit her to Zumba by saying something like "Oh, you should join! It's fun! Just bring so and so down to the child care room with Roberta! We would love to have you!" Then the other mother pretends like she wants to do it and bullshits the other lady until she leaves her alone and goes home. Smart lady.
Eventually, they all clear out and go about their fit, healthy days avoiding snack foods and sugary cereals and no doubt making it home in time to watch Ellen. (As an aside, as 'fit' as all of these women strive to be, most of them remain either over weight or at the very least extremely big boned.)
At this point, 'dance class' begins. The best way I can describe this "class" to you is as a 60-minute brain-rattling mental massacre. It is like listening to someone throw a tool box down a flight of stairs over and over and over and over and over. For an hour. There is yelling. There is crying. There is fighting. Kids fall. They panic. And the tap shoes... Oh those wretched, unbearable tap shoes. All of this with the same goddamn CD of Disney's shittiest pop culture animated movie greatest hits playing in the background. Like the Lion King soundtrack? You're in luck. Have a hankering for "A Whole New World?" Oh, don't you worry. And, just in case this wasn't satisfying enough, of course, for your listening pleasure, there is one mom who LOVES TO SING ALONG! YAY!!! At least there is the sound of the latest dramatic, screaming child who has somehow lost her coordination and hurt herself to drown it all out.
To her credit Avelyn is the most well behaved, silent child in the class. She goes about her business, sometimes following directions, sometimes not. While other girls push one another around and enter other people's respective bubbles , Av just avoids them and dances around like she is the only one there. Sometimes she looks over at me and makes a face. Sometimes she catches me looking at her and she gets embarrassed. It is usually cute.
Soon enough one of the children will take off running toward a parent and inevitable bust her ass on the part of the floor that transitions from dance floor to regular, YMCA-grade dirty tile. Then more crying ensues and Ms. Joan can use this opportunity to explain why we don't run in tap shoes.Then Av will look at me and roll her eyes as if to say "C'mon, every week one of you falls, pull it together."
Of course, while all of this is happening I am, per usual, alone in a sea of moms. While these women are much more middle class and tolerable- there are no trips to Spain or freakouts about what the kids do in school- it is still usually uncomfortable for me to be around them. These moms spend most of their time talking about what their kids do for fun, what they eat, who they saw at this place and that place and how they are planning surprise birthday parties for their wonderful husbands. They encourage and cheer for their kids, or in the case of the woman who loves Disney songs, nicely bark out directions throughout the entire class. Seriously, the lady seems sweet and well meaning, but the whole damn time it's "Sidney, pay attention. Sidney, walk that way. Sidney, don't climb over there." I mean, there is an instructor, that is the person in charge at the class. Let her instruct. Poor Sidney. Getting bossed around by wanna be Celine Dion all day long.
There is one hold over mom from the Zumba class crew and she is a very frightening, Serena Williams- looking woman who leaves Zumba to go get her daughter from the child care room and bring her to dance. This woman looks like she could end your life with a leg lock. She could punch your head right off of your body. She has thighs the size of one of my legs. She is terrifying. How the man that had sex with her to produce that daughter was not ravaged to death in the process is a testament to his own physical strenghth. Her daughter, in a word, sucks.
I think her name is Magnolia, the daughter. I know this only because all I hear the whole class is Magnolia being yelled at. Unlike Sidney, she totally deserves it. She bullies other girls, doesn't listen, throws things for no reason, yells at people. She acts like Avelyn does when she is at home. Combine all of this with the screaming, crying, tap shoes and Disney music and it is enough to make poor old me toss myself down a flight of stairs. Usually I just play word games on my phone and stare out the door across the hall watching all of the MILFS and geriatric old men who work out at the YMCA at 11 a.m. struggle in and out of the weight room. The ratio of old men to hot women at 11 a.m. in the Salem YMCA is 694 to 3. On average, of course.
It is worth noting that there is one other man that brings his daughter to dance class. Unfortunately, he does not stay. He just drops her off on account of him also dragging along two other children with him. Not that I would want to be his dad friend if he stuck around anyway. He has a Mohawk and one of those goatees that dangles all the way down to his chest. He is heavy and he wears a Fall Out Boy sweatshirt. On the back reads the words "California Surf Core." What the HELL does that mean? I have heard Fall Out Boy's music. Putting aside the fact that it is totally embarrassing for anyone who is not a 17-year-old girl in 2005 to actually listen to any of their songs, 'surf core,' as androgynous a term as it may be, does not describe their sound in anyway. There is nothing 'core' about it. And here is a 30-something-year-old man with three kids wearing a Fall Out Boy hoodie and a studded belt to the YMCA. He drives a Honda Odyssey. That is a FACT. Dude, I love music as much as the next guy but, damn, loose the hoodie. California Surf Core wasn't made for you.
Needle, meet eye.
The daughter even showed up to dance yesterday with an arm sleeve of fake tattoos. Now, I have no problem with tattoos, at all, but c'mon. I found out the mom is a librarian, which made me only think of some wool-sock-wearing hipster with cowboy boots and leggins and multi-colored cardigans. And not in a hot way. Sometimes hipsters can be very attractive. No way this hipster librarian mom is one of them. In fact, the ratio of hot and/ or attractive hipsters to overweight bad fashion/ bad tattoo hipsters is 1 to 2,764. Fact. These are all facts I am leaving you with here, folks.
Anyway, California Surf Core doesn't stick around because he has too many kids. Eventually the class ends and Avelyn gets way too excited over a hand stamp or sticker and we go home. Yet another YMCA activity in the books where I leave with a headache and remain a mystery to most of the women involved. I like it that way. I am very mysterious. This probably leads to my billing as the Most Misunderstood Man in America. I am working to trademark that.
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