A few days ago it hit me: I'm going to have to dance with my daughter at her wedding on Saturday.
Of course, I'm no stranger to the dance floor. I was boogie-ing with the best of 'em back in the late 1970s and I had Saturday Night Fever long before the movie premiered. My voice was also a falsetto, like Barry Gibbs, and I loved the idea of Becky being more than a woman to me. Becky knows this. She went to the prom with me our junior year of high school (spring of 1978) and I ripped up the floor. I also ripped out my white pants (which had taken on a yellowed tinge from so much nervous sweat). This is why I spent most of my time at the prom watching a Don Knotts film, thinking my friends would make fun of me, assuming I had peed my pants when, in fact, I simply had over-active glands.
Naturally, the first thing my mother wanted to know when I got home was: "Did you dance with Becky?" Her second question was: "Why did you pee your pants?"
This is something, however, that a seventeen-year-old male cannot explain to a mother's satisfaction.
I reminded my mother that, in addition to being president of the high school letterman's club and a solid "C-minus" student, I knew how to treat a girl to a really good time. "There's more to the prom than dancing," I reminded my mother as I reached for a jug of Ajax and began scrubbing the crotch on my rental. "There are also the intangibles: such as friendship, respect, athletics, honor, C-minus academics, and a really good lime punch with those little strawberries floating on top."
"You should marry that girl," mom told me. "I like that Becky. She's a good cheerleader, probably a virgin, and I don't think she'd let you get fresh with her. In fact, I don't think she'd let you touch her . . . even after twenty years of marriage. You have to respect a girl with such high standards for herself and such low expectations in men."
From that moment on I took mom's advice to heart and knew Becky was the girl for me. If mom liked her, there must be something wrong with Becky, and I was certain that, if I worked hard enough, I would discover Becky's trashy side.
Naturally, I married Becky in order to find out. (But this occurred after years of rejection from hundreds of other women who were not afraid to dance cheek-to-cheek with a pee stain.)
Now here we are--two old people on the cusp of our daughter's wedding--and my wife is once again giving me dancing tips. She refuses to allow the showing of a Don Knotts film at the wedding reception. I am not allowed to have a good time. I cannot wear a white tux. And she insists I double up on absorbent underwear.
"Is Dad a good dancer?" my daughter keeps asking my wife. "Has he ever, even once, given you a good dipping?"
"Sweetheart," Becky tells her, "he's going to embarrass the stuffing out of you."
My wife may be correct. But then again, I'll be wearing a dark tux. That alone should make me look good on the dance floor. And I've been practicing my dips. God knows, I haven't dropped a girl yet.
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