Sunday, October 14, 2007

How Do These Things Happen?


Last night hubby and I went to a school charity Bull and Oyster Roast at a local volunteer fire department hall.

I had heard of these mysterious “Bull and Oyster Roast” things mostly in conjunction with fund-raising, but had never attended one mainly because:

1.) I don’t like oysters. Raw oysters are nasty, phlegm-like and frankly if I wanted that sensation, I just have to wait until I catch my next cold and experience it for free. Not only that, but I hear there are some nasty illnesses you can get from eating those things, so I’ll pass.

2.) Unless they are roasting a whole bull on a spit, I’m guessing the “bull” part is beef, and frankly you can get that anywhere, so even if its for a good cause, why spend $35 to go to a dreary volunteer fire department hall and eat beef?

As I expected, we arrived and knew nobody, well, hubby knew one guy from work, the one that sold him the tickets, the rest were strangers all grouped at tables by who knew who. We sat at a table alone for the most part. The “bull and oyster roast” was actually coleslaw (tasty), cooked shreds of ham, turkey, and beef (there’s the bull part), but no oysters. Hey! How can you call it a bull and oyster roast if there are no oysters. Sure, the cookies were good, but I felt cheated because I didn’t get a chance to rant about the nasty consistency of raw oysters and their inherent diseases to complete strangers.

The entertainment consisted of someone spinning a wheel, people putting money on numbers and if the wheel hit that number, they won money. Um... wait a minute, isn’t that gambling and illegal in the state of Maryland?

They also had a raffle, and were selling tickets to a 50/50 thing where they spun a wheel and if the number on your ticket matched... hey, isn’t that gambling. I felt as though any moment we’d be raided by a government agency and arrested.

The entertainment that night was a DJ. Ok, these people make a living (usually a side-living) by playing music for people who can’t (and usually don’t) dance, but this one took it to the very extreme by being... proactive and chipper. Disgustingly chipper, and chatty. He did lame magic tricks with members of the audience (yawn), then they “played a game” where team members had to put on wacky clothes and run back wearing the wacky clothes, take said wacky clothes off and another person dashed across the dance floor and put on the wacky clothes. I thought the funniest thing about this “contest” was that the losing team actually seemed very upset by the fact that the other team “cheated”. Are you kidding me? They’re arguing over a wacky game?

Placated by a funny plastic hat given to all participants (oh brother) the “real” music began... the Electric Slide.

This is where the whole “how do these things happen” topic starts. How does this crap start, spread, and get danced all over the world? Everything from the chicken dance, to the YMCA song, these things have to start somewhere by some idiot, but how do they spread all over, and why? Apparently the “Electric Slide” according to Wikipedia was started by someone in 1976, but actually found its “craze” in 1989. The person that “created” it, actually sues those that post people doing it wrong on video upload sites. Are ya kidding me?

For some reason I was never a participant of such line dancing, having been scarred for life during the whole “disco” craze, and being forced to suffer through “disco dancing” in high school PE class (I’m guessing that was the beginning of the end for high school PE and the very cause of the obesity problem in school children, but call me crazy).

So, last night I sat in awe as people sat out of other dance tunes, but like zombies with no minds, the moment that song started, lurched to the dance floor and did the steps. It was all women too, which bolsters the following theory:

1.) women like to dance, so they drag their husbands and boyfriends to dance places where their male significant others refuse to dance.
2.) women can only pee in groups
3.) out of necessity and the need to dance, the pee groups came out of the bathroom one time, heard a catchy little tune and created a dance (since the “creator” of the electric slide is sue happy, I expect my lawsuit summons in the mail at any moment for saying that women who have peed created this “fad”)
4.) Once the pee group got snippy with each other over something stupid, each member of the pee group started a new pee group, passing on the wacky dance to them, and from there it spread like wildfire because women tend to argue about stupid things and dump their friends for the smallest infraction (before any women sue me, I’m a woman, shut up, I know what I’m talking about)

So, we can thank women with small bladders and the need to dance in groups without their men for suffering through this crap at functions big and small. Now, I’d really like to know who put old Glen Miller dance tunes to a funky beat and strangle them, the same goes for those Macarena morons.

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