School dances: the reason twins should tattoo their names on their foreheads

After a year of providing all the advice you’ll never need every Wednesday, I thought I’d give WTF Wednesday a break for a while. I’ll still provide useless parenting advice on occasion, and you can always still ask a question via the comments, “contact me” page, or Twitter.

Today’s post sticks with the theme of the last post: the wonderful world of pre-teen dances. It’s about what happened the first time I was actually asked to a dance, and is a good lesson in why twins should be required to tattoo their names on their foreheads.

In 7th grade, Lisa Denman asked if I wanted to go to the Sadie Hawkins dance with her. That was the one dance of the year where girls could ask the boys to go without being labeled total sluts. Don’t ask; times were different then.

Actually, it might have been Leslie who asked me. That was Lisa’s twin sister who was also in my 7^th grade class. I couldn’t tell the difference.

I said yes. It was totally out of character, but I said it before I had a chance to think through the consequences. In particular, the consequence in which I would actually have to go to the dance with her.

She asked me right at the end of the last period and the dance was that evening. On my way home, it donned on me that I didn’t actually know which of the Denman sisters I was going to the dance with. I figured that it probably didn’t matter, though; I could go the whole night without knowing which Denman it was as long as I made note of what she was wearing when she picked me up.

She would pick me up, right? Isn’t that what you do when you go to the dance with someone? Of course, she’d pick me up. So I thought, as I waited by the window beginning about a half-hour before the dance was to start.

About the time the dance was supposed to be starting it occurred to me that she would have no idea where I lived, and about a half-hour into the dance it occurred to me that I was an idiot and I got my mom to drive me.

I showed up to the dance almost an hour late. Both twins were there and I had no idea which one had asked me to the dance, so I did what came naturally: I ignored them both.

Eventually, Lisa—or Leslie—came up looking a little pissed and gave me that annoyed “Well?” look. So I danced with her for a couple of songs, looking everywhere–the band, the lights, the other dancers, my shoes, her shoes, the guy next to me’s shoes—everywhere but at her.

The fourth song was a slow dance. If you read my last post, you won’t be surprise to hear that I panicked. I told Lisa—or Leslie—I had to pee and I split for the bathroom. I’m guessing she wasn’t thinking this was the perfect date when I left her standing there on the dance floor. That would explain why she was slow dancing with Doug Benning during the fast part of Freebird when I came back. The date was over.

For the rest of the year, I had no idea which of the Denman twins I should be embarrassed in front of, so I resolved to just be embarrassed in front of both of them.