Monday, January 20, 2014

Yes, WE Will Go to the Dance with You

Youguys, youguys, youguys! Ohmygosh, youguys!

So, let's just say (totally hypothetically) that your 16 year old daughter - we'll call her Abbie - was creatively asked to her first school dance on Saturday night! And, just for funsies, let's also pretend that you belong to a fantastic book club (which is closed) and it's your turn to host, so your home is filled with 10 amazing people who think your daughter is pretty neat-o, and they can BARELY contain their excitement that they have a front row seat to the actual moment she is asked!!!!

You know what? Let's get even more detailed. 

Let's imagine that it kind of happens like, oh, I don't know, like this: (names have not been changed)

You're all sitting in the front room, discussing books and life and food. (Not in that order.) 

The doorbell rings. 

Kacy: (Who has an uncanny ability to sense things, we'll call her the Doorbell Whisperer.) Abbie's getting asked to a dance! I just saw somebody run away from the door!

Everyone: AAAAAHHHH!

Katie: I'll get Abbie! (Abbie was downstairs, watching a movie with her siblings.)

Everyone else jumps into place. By this, I mean Chris stations himself at the piano and starts playing the appropriate mood music - a kind of dramatic pomp and circumstance riff. The rest of us make a line from the stair banister to the front door, so Abbie gets to/has to walk by all of us on her way to the door. Except my friend, Josh, the only one with sensibilities telling him that this might be embarrassing for Abbie. He hides in the kitchen. 

The room has EXPLODED with emotion! I mean, the thrill, the anxiety, the nervousness, the giddiness - it's all in pieces on the floor and walls and us! Patrick does the sensible thing and films the entire moment.

Once Abbie opens the door and reads the note out loud, we are all abuzz again; planning a proper creative response to this young man, who has no idea what he has started by simply dropping off a plate of toast and a note on this fateful night.  

Within minutes, and even after Abbie has retreated to the safety of the basement, we have already made our own plans for how Abbie should creatively respond to this invitation, what she should wear, what our coordinated outfits should look like for when he picks her up for the dance and we all go to the dance WITH Abbie and her date, and a highly choreographed flash mob. (Admittedly, we aren't sure exactly when the flash mob will be needed - but we're leaning towards the moment he rings the doorbell. Cue the Doorbell Whisperer.) (We are about 68% kidding on all of these things.)

So, I am just wondering…is your 16-year-old self totally cringing while you read this? Would you be mortified or handle it with grace and a smile like Abbie? Would you hate your parents and their friends? And again, this is absolutely hypothetical, I'm asking for a friend.