So you think you can dance

If I told you that I spent my Monday evening touching strange men and then got punched in the nose, you might not immediately guess that Eric and I had gone out to practice our salsa moves.

It was an adventurous Monday night after a pretty long Monday day. We were out until midnight Sunday night hanging out with friends* and I was up at 6am to teach yoga and then stay focused on not screwing up at work all day.

Cafe Cocomo (pronounced with emphasis on the second "co" for authenticity) has $10 salsa classes on Monday nights starting at 7:30 with Basic and getting harder and harder as the evening progresses. It's like a limbo but with much faster music.

Had we thought about it for a few minutes before going over there we might have expected that we would have to dance with people other than each other, aka strangers. Instead, this was an unwelcome surprise around 7:35pm when we were rounded into concentric circles, with women rotating every minute or two to a new partner.

It might be that Mondays are Opposite Day at Cafe Cocomo, but the male:female ratio was 2:1. The arrangement is that the solo dudes stand in between couples so that each man dances with a woman every other turn. When you do the math you will realize that this means that I was forced to dance with twice as many sweaty, lurching men as Eric with squishy, stinky women.**

We lasted until about 9pm and were actually dancing together when things kind of melted down. Eric's face got scratched by one of my nails during a turn*** and then a few minutes later another turn went horribly wrong and I was effectively punched in the nose by both of our hands. It has been a while since I've been punched in the nose and I was interested to learn that my eyes immediately started gushing tears and I was immediately ready to go home.

Next time I want to limbo instead.


*Dinner at their house and then watching Masterpiece Theatre's "Oliver Twist." Once I got over my disappointment that it was not the musical, I actually really enjoyed it.
**Actual words he used to describe the women he had danced with.
***Special thanks to passive voice for your help here