What? You've never heard of Polkaboy? It's just like any other 14 piece polka, funk, rock, party band with 3 accordions. It's also the most fun you can have from 7-11 on a Friday evening.
Zum ov zee most beeyoutiful muzic in zee vorld!
The biergarten was packed. I mean puh-acked. As usual, we were down front, sneaking peaks at the playlist. Also as usual, the third set was when things started to come uncorked. More people jammed the front as the songs sucked them out of the back. Everyone wanted to dance. Everyone wanted to be close. Everyone wanted to be where we were. By the middle of the set, everyone down front had someone's frontage pressed up against their butt.
Then the older, portly, white-haired man we nicknamed Captain Kangaroo decide it was the perfect time to start swing dancing with his almost entirely drunk partner. And by "swing dancing" I mean throwing her around in a manner that requires a clear zone with a good 10 foot radius, though his actual clear zone was closer to 10mm. They were knocking people around like an 18-lb ball on a duckpin bowling lane. He was obviously a Polkaboy newbie whose enthusiasm eclipsed his dancing skills, coordination, and sobriety.
At this point I should mention that the girlfriend has the ability to mimic just about anyone one on a dance floor. It's hilarious. And the genius is that she can do it without offending the mimicee. In fact, the Captain seemed to think that she was coming on to him.
And he couldn't seem to shake that idea, even after the band was done. Even after most of the people were gone. Even after he watched us walk out holding hands.
We decided we hadn't had our fill of music yet, so we hit the Chatterbox for some live jazz. The girl went ahead while I walked my sister to her car. When we came back, we had a table next to a seemingly normal couple.
The girl had been chatting it up with them. They seemed friendly.
Oh, and guess who followed us to the Chatterbox. Yep. The Captain. He walked in and scanned the place, and kept walking back until he spotted us. Had there been an empty seat anywhere near us, I'm certain he'd have taken it. Instead, he kept walking, only stopping when he ran out of bar, and still without a seat. Must be hard without Mr. Green Jeans.
Anywho... We were laughing and talking and having our normal good time. The couple bought a round. Very cool.
Then it got, weird. The couple's guy said something like "You guys seem like a fun group. We entertain a lot. Give me an email address so we can invite you over." And he said it not in a normal way, but as if he'd been rehearsing it over and over in his head, trying to make it sound casual. It was anything but.
Here was my take..."fun group" means liberal when it goes to drawing lines for relationships, and "entertain" means hosts swinger parties. The girl and the sister didn't see it that way. My attempts at speaking to them with my mind, to warn them away from the swingers, went unheard.
I took the step forward and offered up one of my disposable email addresses to the guy, and thought that would be sufficient.
It wasn't.
The guy insisted on getting the girlfriend's email, too, on a napkin. "Just in case his email doesn't make it through."That's right perv, email gets lost all the time. Before I could stop her, she gave it to him. Not in a "I'm might be interested" way, but in a naive "they seem like nice people" way.
And then it got weirder...
My sister REALLY wanted to go dance. While I was listening to the jazz, somehow a plot was hatched to go to Ike and Jonsies. I know. And our new BFFs were going too. The guy even tried to have his wife ride with us, just so we wouldn't ditch them.
Despite my not-at-all-subtle dissension, off we went.
When we got there, the couple was waiting just inside the door for us, like lost little puppies. Lost, hungry, wet from standing in the cold rain puppies, desperate for attention.
We made our way to the dance floor, and this is when it got super weird.
After just a couple minutes of dancing, the guy crossed his arms and just stood by the wall, pouting, still on the dance floor, still kinda dancing from the knees down, with his wife still dancing around him. But he was having none of it, and none of her.
Who knows what he was expecting, but he wasn't getting it and he wasn't happy about it.
Oh, and no matter what my sister says, Ike and Jonsie's plays crap on Friday's from 1a-2a.
We decided to bolt, said the minimal good-byes, and made for the cars. I used that time to spin a thorough and complete explanation of exactly how "I told you so."
Moral of the story: It's good to be nice, but if that niceness is reciprocated way too much, like pegging the needle into the creepy zone of the nice meter, trust your instincts, or better, trust my instincts, and stay put and listen to some jazz.
Oh, and if you have permanent baby teeth, don't drink red wine to the point of staining them. That turns creepy into scary.
Good running,
Doug
Numbers: 1.8 miles on tired legs.
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