The Full Body Throw Up Story

The Ten Thousand Hour Rule states simply that any skill can be mastered by simply practicing for ten thousand hours.

In theory it is the perfect solution to any skill set one would wish to acquire. Say for example the entire rationale behind the saying “throw like a girl”. I am willing to bet that if you took any girl on the face of the earth and had her throw a baseball for ten thousand hours by the time she was done she could throw a baseball well enough to knock down the milk bottles at any county fair and win her own stuffed animal cause I sure have never been able to do it.

The same cannot be said of me when it comes to dancing.

I have tried more than once to learn a musical instrument or anything involving rhythm but I simply don’t have it in me. It never stops me from trying though.

I knew the night was going to be rough when the seal on a several years old bottle of tequila smuggled out of Mexico was broken. There is something truly magical about that elixir. At least it performs magic on me. Makes me believe all things are possible. It also one time in college made me believe I could speak French to a group of girls who not only were taking Bilingual Nursing but were all from Quebec. Magical.

An old friend of mine had called earlier in the week to invite me to his step daughter Cupcake’s nineteenth birthday party. I had sort become an unofficial “uncle” to her since I agreed (drunkenly) to escort her to a Katy Perry concert that no one else would volunteer for.

If you are sensing a theme you are correct. Alcohol makes me quite pliable.

His wife was a chef at a private college and while I consider myself an excellent cook this girl made my best dishes look like street meat prepared by a leper with eight fingers and half a nose. I never pass up a chance to eat anything she prepares. She could dump dog food in a dish and call it a “Beef Testicle Surprise” and I would shovel it in. So the combination of gourmet food and free drinks was too much to miss.

“You doing okay?” I asked my friend B-Man as he stood beside the grill he was in no way allowed to touch.

“I am officially old today,” B said with a bemused smile ” Let’s get fucked up’.

I smiled knowing exactly what he meant. The bottle he had been saving and I had been trying to steal for years sat in a place of honor in his kitchen. Like a shrine to the drunken stupidity that led to renting a cube van to take to the bar and trying to convince a young female police officer that you aren’t drunk while standing in front of a pizza place half-dressed scarfing down cheese steak slices before puking on her shoes.

Shot after shot of the amber fire poured and the music volume increased. I could feel my feet tapping along to whatever dance beat had been playing in the back ground.

“Not tonight,” I tried to convince my addled brain “Not tonight”.

I could hear the clatter of keys and the scuffle of feet putting on shoes as I eyed the empty bottle. My brain was swimming and the choice was clear. I was going dancing. After a few fumbled attempts to get my shoes on and an even briefer search for my coat that I didn’t bring we were out the door.

The bar was as packed as sixteen people can fill a space designed for a few hundred. The bass beat was pounding through the cracked tile floor and could be felt through the soles of your shoes. The lighting was perfectly suited to a space like this as a single red light strobed in a pattern that nowhere near matched the music. A sunken dance floor displayed a lone couple of middle-aged lesbians slow dancing to a song that was reminicent of the Chicken Dance. A middle-aged hipster with long gray hair danced in a hectic fashion on what passed for a stage above the dance floor.

The place was perfect.

The girl faces fell as they made their way to the bar and the adults that had invited themselves to go with them looked for a table that wasn’t covered in someone’s spit. I could see Cupcake cringe as she ordered a drink and look at the exit. I knew what had to happen.

With the fearlessness that can only come from smuggled booze that may or may not have made me go partially blind I attacked the dance floor. I was on fire. I had moves that put the girl from Flashdance to shame. My arms and legs flying in a celebration of human movement and grace. I bounded to the raised stage and ground my way up against the graying ghost in an attempt to clear the floor. I heard clapping and howling. I knew I had to take it to the next level.

I used every eighties dance move that existed. The Running Man. The Lawnmower. The Sprinkler. The Carlton. I was amazed to see the dance floor fill up around me and the dancers try to copy the one man show I was performing but failing miserably. I laughed as they copied my flaring body and smiled as they screamed for more. My heart pounded in my chest and I was one with the music.

The song ended and I made my way towards the bar with the sounds of adoration ring in my ears. Cupcake wrapped her arms around me and was laughing so hard she couldn’t speak. I hugged her back and signalled for the bartender to give us a moment.

“That was the greatest thing I have ever seen,” Cupcake laughed as she regained her ability to talk. I had left her speechless. I was prouder of myself in that moment than I could have imagined. I had turned a possible fail into a total win.

“I do have some moves,”I shouted back in the open space between us. Her laughter nearly doubled her over.

“You looked just like Elaine from Seinfeld,” Cupcake cheered “It was like your whole body was trying to throw up.”

I stood aghast. I was brilliant. I was magical.

I looked out over the dance floor and saw the assembled girls frantically copying the dizzying array of dances I had pulled off while laughing hysterically.

” I am starting a new tradition,” Cupcake smiled as she rubbed my shoulder ” Every year on my birthday we are going to come back here and recreate that performance.”

To this day, the tradition still holds up and my invitation to join them stands.

Now if you will excuse me I have a nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven more hours of dancing to practice before I will ever step foot in there again.