Dance Macabre

Early in January Penelope and I attended Performer’s Showcase. It’s an event where librarians, friends groups, teachers and whoever else is interested can view performances from those fearless people who put on educational children’s programming. The objective: find performer’s for our Summer Reading Programs as well as year round programming if you’ve got the budget. It’s been unseasonably cold and frosty this year Penelope and I have already taken a nasty fall while entering the library who is hosting the event. The hosting library in question did put up a sign warning us of ice on the entryway to their library but in order to read the sign you have to walk through the ice. Freakin' Idiots.

Penelope and I bruised, limping and very grumpy take our seats and await the first performer. Today’s first performer is a man who represents a dance troupe. We’ve had the troupe perform at our library before. They put on a good program for the kids, very interactive and educational. I then realized that they had performed at our branch maybe 7 years ago and that age and beer had not been kind to the man performing for us today. This guy was maybe in his mid-fifties , 5’5” with a huge beer belly that was barely contained by his liederhosen. He started off by explaining to the audience about the history of Hungarian recruitment dance that he was about to perform. Then the dance began in all it’s glory. I almost stopped breathing and peed my pants while trying so hard not to laugh. Penelope was trying to contain herself as the poor, sweating, man was trying to dance his way into our libraries. Dear God it was awful. Between the grunting, scary noises, rivulets of sweat and the erratic movements the man made - I think we were all anticipating fishing for our cell phones and wondering whether or not the paramedics would make it in time. However the man survived the 6 minute performance and we all breathed a sigh of relief as he exited the stage.