I don't know how I get myself into these situations but ooops, I did it again. I have had several people lately make the comment that I need to get out more often, and it's true so the other night when some fellow co-workers decided to go hear one of our new employees go sing with a band, I decided to go too. It was reported to be that this restaurant/bar was the hot place in the area and that if you didn't get there early, you wouldn't even be able to get in the door. I had a hard time believing that but rushed over there to make sure I had a seat by 7. This establishment was really more of a bar/restaurant than a restaurant/bar and it was situated in what I would call a non-upscale part of Nashville. It was packed and people were lined up at the door, 20 deep. My friends were there and had a table so I was good to go. It didn't take long to see that this crowd was not at all what I expected. It was pretty much all the swinging singles, 70 and up, from that area. Let me just say the possitive spin on this night was that the dance floor was never empty and the band was great.
At our table of 11, were five guys under the age of 55 and none with a wedding ring. I now know how the butcher feels that works behind the meat counter and Kroger. Within a few minnutes we got a visit from a group of out of town gals that live in an upscale 55 and up resort community. I am going to say they moved in to that resort area about 15-20 years ago. They were all very, very friendly.
Our table was right up front, right beside the dance floor. That was not a good choice. We somehow ended up with almost all the girls from work on one side of the table and the guys on the other. Us guys were sitting right by the dance floor. That was a mistake. The good thing was though, that we had a front row seat to one of the most entertaining crowds I have seen in a long time. It looked like a scene from a movie, I wasn't sure which movie, but it was definately an interesting cast of characters.
As the band fired up some of the great classic rock and roll tunes, the real show began. There was one woman there, that I later heard in the lobby discussing her vitamin regime. I think she sold them. She was a tiny little thing, 70?, reminded me a bit of Brenda Lee, had Dolly Parton hair and very tight jeans. I am going to call her "Bunny", short for "Energizer Bunny". Bunny stayed on that dance floor all night. She didn't dance on the beat, she danced on every note. She was moving and shaking and snapping and letting everybody in that room know she had tons of energy with some to spare. She was serious, focused and driven to keep that beat and her feet moving. I don't know how she kept up the pace but I have a feeling she might have given herself a B-12 injection in the parking lot and was sipping Red Bull laced with Five Hour Energy. She couldn't stop moving and I couldn't stop staring. Her hair stayed in place all night.
Another character, and there were way too many to write about, was a woman wearing a lace/doily dress. It was ivory in color and reached right past her knees. It was very nice, like a church dress but nicer. It was more like a wedding dress... for the third marriage. She was of advance years, had jet black hair the touched her shoulders and had heavy, straight-across bangs. Her face was deadpan...all night. At first I thought she might be a little sad (maybe #3 didn't work out or something) but by the end of the night I was convinced that she had probably spent the afternoon being infused with a fresh bucket of botox. I am sure she was having a great time but just wasn't able to express it in her face. I don't think she realized that even though from the neck down she looked like she was in a rumba contest, everything above from above the neck was at a funeral, total funeral face...all night. Her face could not express the excitement she was feeling from the neck down. It was bizarre. Well, she entered the dance floor pretty early on, all by herself, sad face, wedding dress and all. I don't know that she every left the dance floor. I felt a bit sorry for her as I pictured her forcing herself out of the house after months of loneliness from being left all alone by husband number three and now forcing herself out onto the dance floor wearing her last happy dress, the dress that made her feel beautiful, her wedding dress #3. I was so wrong. No more "Lifetime" chick flicks for me.
I am going to call her Sqwerky, and here's why. She somehow managed to clear out about a six foot runway of sorts, right along the edge of the dance floor . That runway also happened to run the length of our table which was also infront of the row for the men at our table. Well Sqerrky was doing a walking Salsa type of move where she would dance and wiggle her way up and down her runway in front of our table, back and forth, back and forth. Her face was always facing our table and no matter how excited her dancing got, her face remained the same, funeral face. Suddenly I was back at the carnival as a small boy. I was holding a powerfu water pistol as a mechanical ducks faced me and went side to side as I tried to mow down as many as I could with my semi-automatic water pistol. I was lost in memory until the live runway show stopped right in front of me and the music kept playing. Squirky stopped and firmly planted her feet, gave her hips a preparatory wiggle, and slowly starting lowering herself. Down, down, down she went, until she had finally squatted all the way to the ground. I couldn't believe what I was watching. Then, she just hovered there. For a moment I thought that she just could't get back up. But as I watched this train wreck, I noticed that she was still moving...a little. I think she was trying to do some kind of twerk but I am not exacty sure. It was, I guess, a "senior twerk"? I'm not really sure what I saw but it was a combination of a squat/senior twerk...aka: Sqwerk. She was Sqwerking. Well she sqwerked all night at various , unannounced intervals. The only warning we had was when we would notice she was suddenly not working the runway but instead, had stopped to steadily plant her feet, thus signalling the beginnnings of a decent.
Not to be outdone or outshined by Sqwerky was a woman who probably had quite a time in the 60's, not her 60s' but in the 1960'. She was very bohemian with long curly wild hair and a short cheetah print dress. She could also go all the way down to the ground but had to take a much wider stance to accomplish it. We all looked away. I kind of thought that in that crowd, squatting down and getting back up was just showing off. So Sqwerky and Bohemian Rhapsody stayed on opposite sides of the dance floor most of the night each doing their thing. I was so afraid they were going to have some kind of "squat off" or something but it never came to that. Of course, I didn't close the place down so it all could have happened out in the parking lot afterwards, who knows?
So I was just sitting there being entertained and suddenly someone with a powerful grip, grabbed my hand to pull me out to the dance floor. It was one of the women who had come over to the table early to check out "what was on the menu" for the night. She was possibly one of the older ones, it's hard to tell once everything had been overhauled. Speaking for all of her friends, there had been some major construction, resufacing, lifted foundations, re-spacklig, replaced parts, you name it. This particular "old broad" as she constantly called herself (just in case I couldn't tell) wanted to dance. I am going to keep this PG and remember that I am in mixed company. We were dancing (I don't really know how) and were in that hold where one arm is straight out to the side (holding hands) while the other arm is wrapped around the other person . I had my hand in the middle of her back. Got it? She was one of those "yippee ki yay" "Annie Oakley" kind of women from the old westerns and to accentuate her statements, at the end of a particular statement that she would be proud of, she would give a quick head jerk to the right while lifting her chin just a bit .
We danced to some fast song and somewhere in the middle of the song she said, "I'll bet you thought you were just going to be able to put this old broad out to pasture didn't you?" I have no idea what she meant by that and sort of figured it was a standard one-liner for her. I'm going to try not to overthink that one. Well we danced and that was the longest song of my life . Let's just say she liked to keep a good grip on her men. I am not sure what kind of steel support system she had made into her bra but if that song had lasted any longer I would have dislocated at least two of my frontal ribs. Granted not all of her parts were the same age and I do get putting your valuables behind a display case but man, that was just bizarre. I just knew I was going to be bruised the next day. I was "wedged" let's just leave it at that. I had a quck flashback to that movie where that guy was stuck between two bolders and had to cut his arm off to get free. I looked over at our table and all the silverware had been removed...plan B. Near the end of the song, under my hand that was in the middle of her back, something popped. I panicked and tried not to react. I didn't know if her bra strap/suspension system had just snapped or if her back had just popped. We kept on moving and nothing hit the ground, so I am assuming it was her back and a common occurence. The song ended; it was one of the happiest moments of my life.
Well I drove home from Nashville feeling wierd. I just needed to un-experience that night. I had a nice long drive to detox and think. I had mixed emotions. It was great to see that older crowd acting and feeling like they were in their twenties but it was strange. I felt like I had been dropped down on to the set of the movie "Cocoon"...ah Cocoon, that's the movie. They really did seem to all act and feel like they were young again. I tried to tell myself that it should give me hope. That's when it hit me. That room of people, that is what you get when you mess with nature. That was a room full of hormone replacement therapy patients and men with little blue pills...and alcohol and a live band. Everyone felt like a million bucks. That's good right? Maybe? I have a feeling that might also have been the perfect example of why you shouldn't mess with science. I think everyone there was on a hormone high. One thing is for sure, it was entertaining. I am not sure if I can ever go back. If I do, I will sit in the back. On the other hand, I have never felt younger than I did that night.
