Kate's Point of View

Dear Dummy,

I want to thank you for last night. Thanks for breaking into my car and reminding me that urban living has its risks … for reminding me of the importance of locking up, being street-smart and not leaving stuff laying around in my car. I’m irritated that you’ve left me feeling totally violated and creeped out all morning, but grateful for the good laugh I’ve had at your expense.

Some tips for the next time and general comments on what you got:

• If you’re going to check out the trunk and steal stuff, don’t go for the jank $10 Woot.com jumper cables. Aim for the $200 bike rack instead.
• I know sometimes having to work fast means you need to cut corners, but if you’re going to take CDs, check to see if there are any CDs in the cases you take. Bad news for you is that I misplaced those a long time ago! Also, I don’t think NPR compilation CDs have a high street value. Just a guess.
• A gym pass can be valuable so I totally understand why you took it. I’m thinking you weren’t a neighbor of mine, though, because if you were you would know that the gym associated with that membership closed and was demolished a few years ago. I was only keeping that photo ID because I thought the unflattering photo was funny in how it made each of my boobs look the size of my head. Hope you get a good laugh out of that, too!
• Physical fitness is important to me, as it obviously is to you based on the gym pass you stole as well as the gym bag. I hope you get good use out of those gym clothes. Some tips about the stuff you got: Those shoes are about three years old and need to be replaced pretty soon. Those sweet gym clothes? If you notice that they smell, it’s because they should. I’m a little dirty lazy and those have all been worn at least four times since the last time they were washed. Wear those and you might get a rash!

I appreciate that you left me my nice hand lotion and the emergency supply of tampons. That actually was really considerate of you.

I’m hoping there won’t be a next time. I’m going to be much more diligent about locking my car and I think you’ll find the car alarm that goes off is loudly, highly … alarming.

Yours truly,
Kate

I am not a good dancer. I want to make that very clear. I started attending dances in an era of grunge, bad hip-hop and bump and grind music. (If I use my grade school years as a point of reference, I can also refer to the Running Man, but that’s terrible so I choose not to.) I didn’t embrace the mosh pit, I don’t have the rhythm to dance in any respectable way to hip-hop and thus I am left with bumping and grinding. My dance moves can pretty much be boiled down to:

• Slow dance swaying, a la junior high
• Jumping up and down, which has some variations but is really just jumping
• Grinding, which can include more nuanced steps but I’m willing to call a spade a spade

In summary, my dance moves are lame. But. I do enjoy dancing. While I avoid all scripted dancing (line dancing, the Electric Slide, the Macarena, etc.) because it’s seems an impossibility with my inability to keep a beat, it is fun to bust a move out on a dance floor. (Yes, I said “bust a move.” And, for the record, the song by that name was one of my first music purchases.) Currently my dancing is pretty much limited to weddings, of which I average about one a year.

I have been campaigning for dancing outings but my audience for the campaigns is Wonder Boy and he is very resistant. I think I’ve negatively affected my chances of going out dancing by trying to initiate dancing at (purely non-dance) bars, mostly while intoxicated. Ah well.

Last night Wonder Boy expressed one reason why he might not be comfortable going out dancing.

“So I think when we dance what I maybe need is a little less grinding.”

Once I stopped laughing at how funny this was, I started assessing the situation. If I take grinding out of my repertoire, all I am left with is swaying and jumping. So I am left with some choices.

Do I ignore Wonder Boy’s logic and dance as I always have? This isn’t unreasonable. He doesn’t really like to dance anyway and it’s not like he’s busting out with some Michael Jackson moves on the dance floor. Do I try to learn some current dances, of which I know none. I can always start Jersey Shore fist pumping, because that’s easy.

This year I am in two weddings, one in May and the other in October. I have five months to pacify Wonder Boy, modify my dance moves or introduce Wonder Boy to the world of bumping and grinding.

Note: So much of this sounded dirty and that was not my intention.