Boot-Scootin' Babe [ November 04, 2006, 11:08 am ]

My best friend Emily is just a tad obsessed with Tim McGraw. I mean--who can blame her? He sings excellent songs. And those tight jeans he wears? Fwaah. ANYway. Because of that, in high school she bought Country Weekly Magazine every week. Because Tim was in it every week in some way, shape or form. But there was another feature that we looked forward to every week in that lovely publication: the linedance of the week.

Emily would flip to the article at the back and immediately laugh at the name of the dance, which was always something like the Bootscooter Baby Crawl or the Peach Tree Two-Step. And I would stand in front of her (and her family members because I was the Perfetti family entertainment) and wait for her to call out the steps.

"Slide half a step to your left!"

"Your other left!"

"Kick three and a half times!"

"Now! Spin around and clap your hands then neigh like a horse!"

If only I remembered a few of the dances Emily called out while I was gallavanting with friends last night. The steps I'd learned and just as quickly forgotten were displayed live and in living color last night as rows of people rushed to a neon-lit dance floor to linedance to The Watermelon Crawl and some techno-country song called The Chicken Wing.

They turned! They kicked! They yelled things like "yeehaw!" and mimed riding bulls!

And I was jealous.

Perhaps it was the "when in Rome..." mentality, but I wanted to linedance. Well.

So when some friends pulled me on the floor to dance to another country song starring a fiddle I was gleedful! I could do this! How hard could it be to kick and twist and turn in a line?

Um, very.

And yet I tried. I figured I was slightly safe because I was in the line flanked by other people. What I failed to remember was that all of those other people knew the dances. I didn't. And neither did my friends. But what we lacked in knowledge we made up for in gusto. We flailed when they flailed even if it was with the wrong arm. We spun hard even if it was in the wrong direction. We kicked, we slid, we jigged. Well...I didn't jig because by the time I figured out they were jigging I'd excused myself from that particular dance. I spent a good amount of time observing the dances after that.

However, crowning moment for me came when an Irish country song came on. A woman next to me rolled her eyes but smiled. "This is a lame dance. It's an Irish thing. But it's kind of fun." She and the fifty other people on the floor slid to the right and yelled "hup hup!" I was intrigued. I wanted in.

Into the line I went. I dragged Lisa with me. We slid to the right, kicked to the left, turned and yelled "hup hup!" with the masses on the dancefloor. I turned to the right when I was supposed to turn left. I ran into the person behind me. And in front of me. And almost kicked a lady in the shin. And yet by the end I had the hang of the Irish country linedance.

And now I want to learn more. Because while linedancing is soooo 1993, something about it appeals to me. Maybe it's the group mentality about it. Or the fact that every girl that I watched looked great while doing cowboy kicks. The most likely factor about why it's so appealing is probably because I cannot do it at all. Because we all know I can never turn down a challenge. And the gauntlet has been thrown at the local country bar. And I will pick it up and run with it. Or should I say kick with it?

Ciao, dahling!

~*Krissy*~

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