LAAAAST Saturday night Ruby and I were gallivanting around and we ended up at Chop Suey, which was very very early in its evening of dance that they give on Saturday nights. So early that no one was on the floor yet. I decided that some dancing was exactly what I needed, especially since it is one of my favorite things and I was kind of a ball of nerves since I knew I was about to give notice at work, which I finally had the opportunity to do yesterday.

But this was Saturday, and I was facing a completely empty dance floor. My legs twitched involuntarily. There seemed to be some kind of gravity sucking me towards it. I decided to have a martini while I was waiting.

“Are you sure you don’t mind if I dance for a while?” I asked Ruby, who did not break the death lock the Twitter has on her to look back at me. An elephant with Elvis hair and chops could be sodomizing Jesus while an orchestra composed entirely of Arctic wildlife accompanied the act, and Ruby would be tapping away at her iPhone. “OMG there are no seats at the Holy Sodomy” TWEET.

After a few more agonizing minutes some brave early arrivals hit the floor, and I joined them. I did my usual thing that I do when I am alone, which is to get a little off the very middle and dance on my own, not too fancy, and not that sad “I am so cool I am just going to kind of apathetically shuffle around a little whatever” move–somewhere in between.

Suddenly the smell of AXE and entitlement filled the air, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I saw the mass of frat boys enter like hyenas, looking for a hottie wildebeest that was staggering and emitting its telltale call of vulnerability, “AMG YOU GUYS I AM SOOOOO DRUNK.”

Fortunately, in frat boy years I am over 9,000 years old, so I assumed I was invisible. Plus I was dressed reasonably for the weather, which is to say I was not wearing something that looked like a small triangle made of puce lamé, like some of my fellow dancing compatriots.

Regardless, some horrifying specter emerged from the crowd and attempted to woo me via dance. I hesitate to dance with people I know and like, because of my balance issues, let alone some jerkass who was gesturing at me to dance over to him like we were in some bad bad very unintentionally-gay 80’s movie. Could this really be happening?

I obliged him for a few minutes because I am like that (not nice, but curious) and he spun me around a bit and tried to make cool guy chit chat with me. I attempted to sidle away and dance by myself. I was in one of those “Hey Guy I Don’t Want Any Trouble Here Ok” moods and just wanted to get back to what I really wanted, which was that awesome feeling of solitude and bliss in a crowd of people moving with you.

Shockingly, I know, he reapproached me. There were so many things I could have done. I could have been firm and said no. I could have stomped off or pretended he didn’t exist. Maybe he wasn’t so bad the first time. “It’s my buddy’s 21st birthday, WOOOO!” he wooed at me. He pointed over at his friend. Why could I not have that one? The birthday one was cute and wearing a tie.

And then it got bad.

We danced together a bit without touching, and he was pretty out there and campy, which was kind of fun. I played along and started pulling out some moves I’m pretty sure I learned on Saved by the Bell. Was he wearing…Z. Cavariccis? What the…can you even still get those?

Then he turned around and started grinding his ass into my crotch. WHAT. Was this really happening? Do people really do this? Other than right then? That’s not a hypothetical question, okay. I think he was gesturing at me to spank him. No. Not okay.

Then he started going for broke. All I could do was back away while his friends cheered him on. Dear reader, I kid you not, he found one of the club’s structural poles and began spinning on it like a stripper.

Since the show had gone solo, I used it as an opportunity to flee back to Ruby. She was completely engrossed in reading Hemmingway on her phone. “Having fun?” she said, absorbed in the terse manly prose. Of course we go to Chop Suey on a Saturday night and read The Sun Also Rises. What was with this night?

“NO,” I said. “I AM NOT HAVING FUN. LET’S GO.”

And we went.

In Other News

This morning at breakfast I made an oblique reference to the fable of the dog that sees a reflection of itself  in a pond with a bone in its mouth, goes for the phantom bone, and loses the real one in the water. Franny had never heard it and asked what I was talking about, so I told her.

“And then the dog had nothing,” I finished. “What do you think the lesson of that story is?” I asked her. Franny thought for a moment.

“Don’t look into ponds?” she said.

Once I stopped laughing hard enough to rip the seams on my pants and was able to tell her what the intended moral was, she added, with a completely straight face, “Well, I like mine better. I don’t like looking into ponds. They are slimy.”