Social Experiment

So my buddy Ben from work and I got a wild hair the other night and decided to go to a redneck bar. Country bar, line dancing club, call it what you will. Let me back up a moment and say that this particular wild hair was planted by other people at work who I now feel may have had a malicious agenda. Ben and I, having never been to such establishments, were told tales not unlike those Cortez was told of the riches Mexico had in store. So we decide to venture to The Roundup, which is a country club located ostensibly in a strip mall, carefully wedged in between a pilates gym and a bingo parlor. Just an aside: as I wrote this it dawned on me that I don’t know how to refer to establishments that cater to either the pilates or bingo crowd. I’m not sure if those activities are partaken within the confines of a gym and parlor respectively. If any of you dear readers know the answer, please let me know. But I digress.

It became clearly apparent that neither Ben nor I belonged at this bar without some sort of initiated escort. My style of dress has been described as the preppy side of frat boy, while Ben is hard core skater punk, from the spiky hair down to his skate shoes. No sooner had we rolled by the front door than the bouncer was in his little golf cart following us to our parking spot to get a better look at the strangers. Once inside it was no better. I felt as if there were a pair of eyes staring out from under each 10 gallon hat thinking “You boys ain’t from around these parts, are ya?” Ben and I found a spot and posted up so that we could take in the social phenomenon that is line dancing.

The one and only word I can think of that describes line dancing to me is “befuddling.” I watched for 2 solid hours, and the secret never became apparent. I have no idea how everyone knows exactly which dance to do without being told. I also don’t know where they all learned these dances, unless I missed that day during high school. There was a girl near by whom I asked about all this, but she could only tell me that she was from out of town and was unfamiliar with this style of line dancing. I asked where she was from, expecting to hear some distant and exotic location from the line dancing community. “Orlando,” she answered. In any case, I did not dance. Ben did, though, after several bottles of courage. Drunk first time line dancers are a hoot to watch from the safety of the other side of the 2x4 fence erected both for decoration and probably safety reasons as well. The night ended without any of the promised excitement coming to fruition. Instead it was just the long drive back from a bar in a strip mall in north Hillsborough county ending at about 3:30 in the morning. Way past my bedtime. All in all, not a bad experience, but will definitely be crossed off my list of things to do when I have a free evening and feel like doing something new and exciting.