It’s the Baptists, right, who frown on dancing? Well, if you’re a Baptist you might not want to read the rest of this post. Because I had my first dance lesson last night.

To be precise, what is known in the United States as Ballroom Dancing.
Waltz.
Foxtrot.
Etc etc.

For years, since moving permanently to Austria, a country where every profession has a guild and every guild has its own ball I had been looking forward to dance lessons as an inevitable experience that would make me wish I were at the dentist getting another root canal.

Meanwhile, Alpha had resigned herself to the fact that I would never learn to dance. I mean, her mother taught me and my siblings to waltz just before our wedding, spinning us around her living room like a NASA astronaut training machine; we were able to waltz at the wedding, but forgot again shortly thereafter.

Anyway.

Like a man driving to his own execution, I drove us to the dancing school, which is located above a local hardware store.

It was packed. We registered and paid, which went smoothly except for when Alpha refused to divulge certain data about herself for the registration form, out of pure orneriness. We went in and sat around the instruction room while everyone else registered.

There were a lot of people so we sat around for a quarter of hour, me getting more and more nervous. The room was quite large, with a hardwood dance-type floor and mirrors, and mirror balls, and lights, and a DJ booth, basically what you’d expect for a dance school, and the sort of place I, the former would-be punk, would never frequent voluntarily unless I was poisoned and they had the antidote there.

Finally the class started. A young woman in a plaid sweater, very short pleated plaid (but not matching) school-girl skirt, white fishnet stockings and white dance shoes (appealing in a sick way) ran the DJ booth. The instructor was a trim, balding man in a suit and dance shoes with a microphone growing from his chest.

I had a great time, much to my surprise. In fact, I haven’t been that surprised since I stabbed a chisel three inches into my hand working on a door frame five years ago.

At least one member of every couple there was a beginner just like me! And more importantly, I wasn’t the worst dancer, not by a mile.

We did one dance, then we did another dance. Alpha tried to lead at one point, but I barked at her and she behaved after that. We danced around. Imagine me, with an amazed shit-eating grin on my face, thinking, “We’re dancing! And I’m leading!”

Then at the end of the evening we did a square dance, to loosen everyone up and relax before we went home. As dances go, square-dancing is my lifelong nemesis. We had to square-dance when I was in second grade and I have never hated any school activity more, not even getting pushed around by troglodytes.

Square dancing is, you know, square dancing. But doing it in Austria was unusual enough that it became interesting again. I mean, it’s not like I woke up that morning planning to square-dance in Austria. Alpha was my partner, and when we switched partners on some of that squaredance stuff, the woman I ended up with looked a lot like this person. Seven feet tall in high heels, charming sense of humor, young, nice hands. Wow.

It was nothing like being in second grade, it was far better.

On the other hand, in second grade the girls let me tie them up with jump ropes in the playground during recess, but that’s another story.