A miniature version of the plague hit my house sometime between when I went to sleep on Sunday night and when I woke up on Monday morning, but we’re going to talk about a happier time.  A time when the villagers were frolicking in the sun and all anyone could think about was puppies.  A time when I could breathe through my nose.  Right.

I recently decided to polish up some new (to me) dance moves.  It’s that time in my life when lots of my friends are getting married.  And even though watching those friends start a new phase of life does get me 95% of the way to fantastic day status, there’s still that 5% to consider.  The 5% depends on things like reception food and dancing quality for the afternoon/evening.  In the past, I’ve mostly ignored the dancing portion of that, which comes out to roughly 2%.  Not this year.

My formative dancing years (also known as high school) were spent playing ping-pong and avoiding dances.  How was I supposed to know that my backhand slice serve wouldn’t serve me as well as the ability to move on beat in front of lots of people?!  Then in college, I learned how to two-step and do the electric slide and picked up a few polka steps.  If you’re in a bar in Texas, those are great skills.  If you’re at a wedding in Virginia, they don’t quite cut it.

Anyway, the tool that’s going to move me past the dancing slump is the Wii game Just Dance.  It’s like dance karaoke.  You can watch your friends make fools out of themselves and then get up and do the same thing yourself to a different song.  With choices like Elvis and M.C. Hammer, you can’t go wrong.  And if you’re by yourself, you can justify the ridiculous fun by pretending that it’s a great cardio workout.

After my Sunday evening run, the dancing transformation began.  I did five full-length dance routines and waited for my cumulative score to appear.  Was I a little disappointed that my highest score was for the Spice Girls song?  Yes.  I guess it was fate though.  They were my first music CD, after all.

So Elvis says I have a long way to go before I can borrow his blue suede shoes, but I’ll win him over as soon as the plague leaves my house.  Will this actually turn me into a super fab dancer?  No.  Will I have fun anyway?  Absolutely.