Rock Ramblings: Nix those bird dances at pre-wedding socials

If you’ve spent time living on the other side of the straw curtain or in the keystone, you’ll be familiar with this Saturday night setting. It’s with some apprehension that I would like to discuss the ‘social’. Kind of like the Norwegian Rat; we’re supposed to be free of the varmints but they still keep on two-stepping towards that Alberta border.

If you’re unfamiliar with this prairie tradition, a ‘social’ is a wedding dance before the wedding dance. In theory, it’s a generous idea. Friends, family and complete strangers, for a small fee, can attend a ‘social,’ with all proceeds to benefit the happy, soon-to-be-hitched couple. There are many aspects of the social that I do appreciate like the 50/50 draw, the cheap drinks and the midnight lunch which makes paying for the social ticket worth its while because who can’t appreciate an egg salad sandwich at 10 past midnight?

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Like a lot of dudes who suffer from two left feet and two left hands, I feel quite uncomfortable while on the dance floor. It doesn’t matter how much of Cousin Johnny’s hooch has been ingested but that waxed piece of checkered plywood polished to a high gloss does me no good. I’m a finger snapper and despite my passion for music, I’d rather be in the local community hall kitchen scraping cranberry sauce off plastic plates than spending time underneath that twirling and dazzling mirror ball. And I’m not necessarily talking about those fancy dance moves either like ‘the lawnmower,’ ‘the shopping cart’ or ‘the water sprinkler.’ Herein lies a sordid story concerning songs that need to be put to rest and when I say ‘rest,’ I mean a slow and grisly demise.

I’ve got nothing against our finicky flying friends but since when do we owe birds a tribute in the form of dance, a.k.a. the Chicken Dance. Like most of us, we’ve all partaken in the bird dance and from the birds I’ve seen, in no way does this represent the animals that soar in our skies. I can understand the flapping of the arms to represent flying, I’ll give you that one. But the move that follows, the one where you ‘twist’ to the floor and then back up before clapping your hands? It’s more of a bird flu dance if you’ve ever witnessed me attempting to pull off this musical manoeuvre. If I want to be part of a train, I’ll phone Via Rail as this is the only locomotion I want to be a part of. To be sandwiched between some drunk guy who hasn’t showered since Sir John A. MacDonald ran this land and that leathery faced cougar who’s eyeing you up like she hasn’t eaten in a month leaves something to be desired. And if you do manage to escape the magnet of being sucked into the locomotion with a lengthy visit to the community hall restroom, be warned that the locomotion is usually followed up with ‘the butterfly’ dance which by comparison, I’ll only assume, is as pleasant as a vasectomy without anesthesia.

Now I know I haven’t scratched the proverbial dance floor in terms of bad dances and I also know that a ‘bad dance’ is only relative to the dancer’s skills because I can even making walking look like a chore. And now if you’ll excuse I’ve been given the choice of rocking out to a version of Gangnam Style or digging out a basement with a spoon. Is that a plastic or silver spoon?

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