Face your fears...

So I've had this reoccurring dream that I was being forced to dance in front of my whole middle school. Not the one I'm teaching at now... Just as a kid or an adult in front of some large body of tweeners that mercilessly lash me with insults while I writhe around doing only what a baboon might consider dance moves.

Many of you may have had this dream before. Perhaps yours had nudity or underwear mixed in. Thankfully mine haven't or I may have chewed right through my mouth guard that I wear at night to keep me from nervously grinding my teeth. Anyway if you have had this dream, maybe you can tell me what it means. I really have no idea. All I know is that I've always associated it with my general fear of dancing and moreover my fear of dancing in front of folks. It wasn't until the last year or so that I've managed to start dancing at weddings and things on a regular basis. I don't know why, but I've never really been down with bustin a move. Probably because I suck at it.

I'm telling you this to provide a little background for last week when I found out the activity I had blindly agreed to participate in at the pep rally was... you guessed it, a dance off. Needless to say I didn't sleep well the night before.

Luckily as the day began I stayed fairly busy and thus distracted. My wife showed up during my early off period with donuts for me which was an extremely awesome high point. The kids were fairly cool all day and like I said, for the most part, I was able to put the ordeal out of mind. That was, until the end of the day, when I had a whole hour's worth of off period to stew on my impending doom. I'm not kidding you, I was so overwhelmed that I literally found myself watching soldier boy's how-to video so I could brush up on how to crank that.

So when the hour came to actually take the floor I felt like every digestive organ was somewhere in the back of my throat. Nevertheless there was no getting out of it now. (I had already tried to use my crossing guard duty as an out to no avail.) Then the cheerleading sponsor called us out in a frenzy to the middle of the floor where we would square off with a bunch of kids. As it turns out there would be 12 people out there dancing all at once, 6 kids and 6 teachers. There would be a winner from both groups. Well... at least I don't have the spotlight.

What happened next is a little fuzzy to my recollection. In my mind there was just this flurry of flying around doing the running man, the sprinkler, the worm and some bootleg yoga moves all set to the tune of 15 second cuts of 80s music. Teachers and kids alike were going nuts... both on the floor and in the stands. Somewhere toward the end, with sweat rolling and me panting like basset hound in a marathon, I looked up and realized there were no other teachers on the floor. Had they all walked off? Well I decided to take the opportunity and make my exit.... no dice.

Some friendly little cheerleader, who I don't even know said, "No Mr. Spur! Stay in there!" And she pushed me back out. On my way back to the floor I notice one of the kids still left. Dude had some serious moves. It was pretty cool and at some points, whether out of amazement or sheer exhaustion, I found myself just standing and watching. Then I sort of became his cheerleader because it was pretty clear that he was the kid winner.

When the smoke cleared and the dancing ended, two cool things happened. 1. I had faced my fear and managed to overcome. and 2. I won... who woulda thought. Moral of the story... face your fears kids, you never know where it might get you.

Overheard @ WoRMS:
Girl: So since my first buffalo looks like an elephant, should I draw my second one with a trunk or not?
Me: Huh?
Girl: Well, he told me yesterday that a buffalo was like an elephant and so I drew an elephant but today I see what they really look like so what should I do.
Me: Don't believe everything everyone tells you... it's starting to make you look silly. Draw a brown cow with horns... no trunk...
(I'm going to get this thing and scan it in for you folks, it's unreal)