Dancing around the topic

By Rick Hoover
STILLWATER NEWSPRESS (STILLWATER, Okla.)

STILLWATER, Okla. Fri, May 16 2008

— Sara, the daughter, is telling me about Friday night’s middle school dance.
Actually, she’s trying to not tell me. I think. Or maybe she just thinks I won’t understand. Because I’m old. Or because I’m bald. Or because I’m old and bald. According to her, these are the three reasons why I don’t understand the gibberish she sometimes spews.
Right now, she’s not spewing anything, but dodging my questions.
“How was the dance?”
“OK.”
“Did you dance with any boys?”
“No.”
Did you dance with any girls?”
“NO!”
“Did anybody dance with you?”
“No.”
“Did anybody dance with anybody?”
“No.”
“Well, if nobody danced, why do they call it a ‘dance’?”
“Dad, things are different from when you were in school.”
Not true. We didn’t dance at the dances, either.
“Did you dance with any chairs?”
“There weren’t any chairs.”
Now, this is different. Back in my day, there were lots of chairs. We needed them to sit on while we stared across the empty dance floor at the girls, who also were sitting on chairs. Lots and lots of chairs. Chairs as far as the eye could see. All of them filled by people not dancing.
“What did you sit on?”
“We didn’t sit.”
“What were you doing?”
“Dancing, dad. It was a dance, you know.”
“A-ha!” I thought. I hadn’t considered one possibility.
“You were dancing by yourself?”
“No.”
My infinite patience is growing finite.
“Precious, precious treasure, so far you have told me that you didn’t dance with anybody and you didn’t dance alone, but you did dance. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Everybody was dancing.”
I know exactly what happened at the dance. They all wiggled around and acted like dorks, not really dancing with anybody but not alone either. I did it, too, back in the day. I knew all this before I started asking questions but I was bored and thought I would irritate her for a while.
Instead, I can’t get her to tell me anything and it is I who is irritated. I am, after all, supposed to be a professional at getting people to say things they don’t want to say and I’m getting outfoxed by an 11-year-old who thinks the Disney Channel is a reality show.
She doesn’t know this is a competition, she just doesn’t want to tell me anything and she’s doing a really excellent job of it. Becca, the daughter’s mother, has been a poor influence on her concerning what — and mostly what not — should be shared with me.
I consider a different approach, just to get her to tell me anything so I can tell myself that I won. Then I decide it’s not worth the effort because Matt, the son, is available. It takes very little to irritate him and, therefore, to entertain myself I need only expend a minimal amount of energy.
I watch as he walks by.
“What?” he asks, paranoid. “Stop looking at me!”
He is just too easy.

Rick Hoover writes for The NewsPress in Stillwater, Okla.

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