The Big Dance

Newsletter 2024-09-23

There was a knock at the door. It was Betsy’s date for the big dance—and his dad. I sent for Betsy. She wasn’t ready. She and my wife were locked in our room finishing their final preparations. At least I hoped they were final. Based on the terse message I got back from the child courier I sent upstairs, Betsy would be ready sometime between next Tuesday and never. It was my job to keep our two guests entertained until then. I’ve never been less prepared for anything in my life.

The other dad and I looked at each other with barely suppressed horror as we realized the situation we were trapped in. We couldn’t leave, and we couldn’t hurry things along. We were at the mercy of ancient forces beyond our control. I’ve never experienced it myself, but I’ve seen countless teen movies where the girl stays upstairs getting ready while the boy is forced to wait. I thought that was, at best, a fictitious Hollywood trope and, at worst, a girl boss power move. In this case, it was neither. Girls don’t want to play mind games. They just want to procrastinate on getting ready because it’s a lot of work. Betsy took a lengthy mid-afternoon nap to recover from her cross country meet that morning. She finally walked into my and Lola’s room thirty minutes before the boy was supposed to arrive. For a guy, that would have been twenty-eight more minutes than necessary. For a girl, it was barely enough time to get started. It was up to me to occupy the boy and his dad until she was done. I would have to filibuster like I had never filibustered before.

I didn’t expect there would be two of them. The classy thing for the other dad to do would have been to drop off his kid at the sidewalk and speed away. The boy didn’t even need to come inside the house. I could snap some quick pictures of him and Betsy on our front steps and then bid them on their way. They had reservations at a restaurant within walking distance. There would be no further adult intervention required until they were done eating and needed a lift to the dance. I expected this to be a hands-off evening (for everyone involved) other than the typical back and forth driving that defines my existence as a dad. Instead, the other dad came inside. I had to shake his hand and pretend to be a responsible adult. I wasn’t fooling anyone.

I had neglected to panic clean. I hadn’t even panic quit out of my Xbox game. I was enmeshed in my perfect Saturday setup where I sit in the living room playing video games while simultaneously watching college football on the dining room TV. It’s what open concept floor plans were meant for. I might have saved my dignity if I were playing a manly game like EA Sports NCAA 25. Instead, I was trying my luck at Slay the Spire, a virtual strategy card game that looks like a cartoon. There were multiple levels of nerdery at play. I was a dork turducken. After taking one look at the screen, the other dad must have assumed I was twelve. That’s two more years of maturity than he should have given me credit for.

In my defense, I had finished all my masculine chores over the previous two days. I scooped pig poop, mowed, planted grass seed, layed hay, watered the yard, and trimmed the bushes. Saturday morning, I even got out our twenty-foot ladder to reattach a piece of aluminum flashing below a window. Lola was disappointed I survived. She’ll get that big life insurance payout someday, probably when I die of social awkwardness. Betsy just needs to keep bringing over her dates and their dads.

The other dad and I both aggressively ignored the cartoon video game battle shaman on TV one and focused on the college football game on TV two. Michigan was in a close contest against USC. It’s in moments like that that I’m thankful I maintain a rudimentary awareness of sports for the sole purpose of interacting with my fellow dudes. Otherwise we would have stood there in complete silence until one of us had a nervous breakdown. The other dad mentioned that his team had already played that day. I asked him who it was, neglecting to notice it was clearly labeled on his hat. Not that I ever looked directly at him. We were focused on the second TV and could only see each other through our respective peripheral visions. The game cut to a commercial. Time got even slower. Betsy was still nowhere to be found.

The other dad mentioned that his kid is on the football team. That was an exciting avenue of conversation that was sure to kill some time. I asked what position he plays, even though I barely know what any of them are. The boy is an offensive lineman, which is one of the few spots I understand. It’s supposed to be occupied by huge fat guys who are also somehow the quickest people on earth. There’s nothing more intimidating than a man who lives his life at an all-you-can-eat buffet yet can still beat you at a hundred yard dash. The boy didn’t look like he had the build for that. He was a few inches shorter than me and very wiry. I misjudged him completely. Unlike with girls, among whom body weights are state secrets, with boys, extra mass is a bragging point. The boy actually outweighed me by ten pounds. Worse, he’s the conference’s wrestling champ and plays varsity football as a freshman. My fourteen-year-old was going to the homecoming dance with her grade’s uber jock. I was a lot happier when I knew less about him.

His special set of skills meant my screening tool likely wouldn’t work. It was a brilliant idea from my friend Greg. For all future dates, he proposed Trial by Onyx. One of the defining moments of my life was when, on short notice, I rounded up a posse of my friends to wrangle a potbelly pig in an overgrown yard behind a burned out house. For an hour, we battled that 110-pound beast in the jungle. We all came away with bumps, bruises, and stories that would last a lifetime. Any guy who wants to marry, date, or make eye contact with one of my daughters should be up to that challenge. It was a test that wouldn’t slow down this particular boy. He pins 180 lbs. guys for fun. Then again, Onyx doesn’t have convenient arms and shoulders for easy grip. I want to see the boy take out a V8 engine on table legs. I didn’t get the chance Saturday. The level of cringe in the house was too high even without me bringing it up. There’s so much in my life that I take for granted that looks absolutely bizarre to an outsider. That’s my dog in a diaper. Those are my house pigs. That’s my pile of super expensive cardboard toys for grown-ups. I kept the conversation on the man’s super athletic son for a reason.

Our small talk lasted approximately two hundred years. Empires have risen and fallen in less time than it took Betsy to put on that dress. Finally, she and Lola appeared downstairs. It took everything in my power not to sprint out of the room. My work should have been done. Instead, I was drafted into taking pictures. The hellacious gauntlet of social awkwardness I’d just survived needed to be commemorated with a photo. I had Betsy and the boy stand on our front steps while I quickly snapped off a thousand pictures. I’m covering the boy’s face here because I didn’t ask permission to post him online. Bringing it up would have extended an uncomfortable conversation that needed to end. The time to mention my secret second life is not when I’m trying to get people to leave.

Despite the fact that we’d been together for what seemed like hours, the amateur photo session was the first time I looked directly at the boy. I was impressed by his light blue tennis shoes. At his age, I never would have been bold enough to pull off that look. One of my most traumatic memories from high school was when I went to put on my new black shoes right before a dance only to discover that I literally had two left feet. The universe was trying to tell me something. I instead put on brown shoes with black pants, which even I knew was a major fashion faux pas. My mom had to rush a new pair of black shoes to the pizzeria where my friends and I were eating our pre-dance dinner. My non-existent level of social adeptness has been the same from the start.

Betsy and the boy were also going out for pizza. The place was close enough that it would take longer to drive them there and find a parking spot than it would for them to go on foot. The other dad insisted on providing them with motorized transportation anyway. He and the boy’s mom are divorced. She lives in our suburb, but his house is far enough out of town that he didn’t have time to go home while the kids ate. He also wasn’t going to hang out in the restaurant with them, which even I knew would be uncomfortable. Instead, he planned to sit in his car until they were done. I offered to let him hang out with me and watch football. He declined. He would rather be alone in the parking lot for an hour with the engine running than put up with another second of me. I nearly cried with relief. He said he would take the kids from the restaurant to the dance and that the boy’s mom would bring Betsy home afterwards. I was officially off the hook for driving duties. It was a good thing, too. I’ve never needed a drink so badly in my life.

Lola and I went through our usual Saturday night routine. We watched a movie on a laptop while she cross stitched and I played the same game that caused me to lose face to another man. Around 9:15, we heard the front door. Betsy had arrived back, safe and sound. She gave us a full report. The dance didn’t have a single slow song. I was all for that. Back in my day, the joke was that you had to leave room for the Holy Spirit. Now, there aren’t any dances that require touching each other at all. That’s all well and good, but I prefer even more precautions. The school should put up a velvet rope to keep the boys and girls on opposite sides of the dance floor, or, better yet, in different gymnasiums.

The only low point of the night, at least to me, was the meal. Betsy and the boy split a single small thin crust pizza. I’ve never been so outraged by anything in my life. Money shouldn’t have been a barrier. All kids are charity cases. They’re too young to work. One hundred percent of  their income comes from parents and other relatives. We gave Betsy cash, and the boy’s dad gave him some as well. They shouldn’t have felt bad about spending it. Instead, they ordered the cheapest option on the menu. Betsy was shocked at how much soft drinks cost. Wait until she finds out how much I spent on kids’ meals over her entire childhood. Betsy insisted that she got enough to eat, but I know that boy had to be hungry. Inside every male that age is a nuclear reactor powered by junk food. My Midwestern sensibilities are affronted that he might have gone to the dance hungry. I assume he ordered sixteen pizzas when he got home. Either that or he really does have a small appetite. If that’s the case, he’ll never fit in with this family. That’s one point against him. He better hope he can wrangle that pig.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Catch you next time.

James