Ain't No Party Like a Cap'n Cluck Party

Last Friday, in honor of Cap'n Cluck's b-day, a good-sized group of Singles and Denton Bible folk headed down to Gilley's in Dallas for an evening of country dancing. Gilley's is a bit of a rarity in that it's a smoke-free environment, which is a huge plus for the respiratorally challenged among us, such as Cluckity and myself. Although, even that might not be enough to get Cluck to go back down there after the way last Friday ended . . . but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The evening started off with a small caravan departing from The Cardinal's house around 7:00 in an effort to get to Gilleys before 8:00, which is when they start charging to get in; we got in for free with about 10 minutes to spare. The caravan vehicles were divided according to how long people were planning on staying; since I'm all for closing the place down, I got to ride along with The Cardinal, Cap'n Cluck, and a Denton Bible-ite whom I hadn't met before. For the purposes of this story, she shall be known as Rocker Girl, since she confessed to having little to no knowledge of Country music, let alone dancing, preferring Rock and Roll. Our drive down was uneventful, outside of the odd moment where I found myself in the unfamiliar position of being the only person in a group who likes a food that all the others despise. Unsure of how to handle this rare situation, I mostly sat back the let the three of them rail against the evils of pickles. Anyway, although Cluckity and I were the only Singles to join The Cardinal's caravan, it wasn't long before a few familiar faces arrived at Gilleys, including Scuba-girl, Monkey Dance, H.Q., Peanut, and Squiggly. I was especially glad to see the Squiggly One, since I knew it would mean there was someone there who was even less enthused about Country dancing than I was.

Quick digression about my attitude towards dancing* A while back I talked about how dancing is one of the few physical activities I can engage in without feeling self-conscious. I still stand by that, but with one caveat - - that my dancing isn't actually with somebody else. When all I have to worry about is myself, I can let loose with no regrets. Throw another person into the mix, however, and there goes my carefree, booty-shaking attitude. Because when I'm dancing with somebody else, I can't just let my goofy self do whatever goofy moves it decides to do in its goofy way; no, I suddenly have to worry about another person's moves, another person's gait, another person's rhythm . . . then you throw in the spinning and turning and moving of the arms at the same time as the feet . . . it's madness, I tell you, madness!

Seriously, I don't mind country dancing, but I'd need a lot more practice before I'm totally comfortable getting out on the dance floor with someone else in public, especially when they're veteran dancers like H.Q. and Cap'n Cluck. At this point, I'm too self-conscious to truly enjoy dancing unless I can be a total goofball while doing it. Still, I did dance with H.Q. and Cluckity once apiece; I might have felt more pressure to dance if there hadn't been a surplus of much more practiced guys from Denton Bible to pick up my slack.

So, given my reluctance to strut my clumsy stuff out on the dance floor, I was all-in with Squiggly's plan to keep playing pool since, as she said, "as long as I'm playing, I don't have to dance." And the fact that the pool tables at Gilley's are free made it an even easier decision. Had a pretty good time, even if Monkey Dance did whup up on us with his mad pool playing skills.


Although, I think there were a few times Squiggly wished I would go out on the dance floor, instead of dancing around the pool table; I wish I'd had a camera to capture the look of terror on her face as I boogied and sang along with the odd country cover of Prince's "Kiss." Priceless. Instead, all we got was the aftermath of Squiggly losing complete control of the cue stick, which went upside down and sideways and . . . well, you know the rest


It was somewhere around this point where Cluckity decided that it was time to engage in one of the favorite hobbies of the photo-happy gals of the Singles group: the quest to actually get a good picture of Cap'n Neurotic. I hate posing for pictures; I feel horribly self-conscious forcing a smile on my face, and usually wind up turning it into a grimace mere instants before the camera flashes. About the only time a picture of me looks relatively good is when I'm caught completely off-guard. So there I am, standing by the pool table, more than likely mortifying Squiggly by singing and dancing to whatever the band was playing, when suddenly Cap'n Cluck sneaks up beside me, tickles me on the side, and thrusts the camera in front of us, hoping to catch me in the middle of laughing naturally, thus yielding a good picture. Instead, what she got was this:



The horror, the horror!

Now, even though I might not do a lot of dancing, I usually have lots of fun watching some of the others doing their thing out on the dance floor. Take for instance the Denton Bible guy I like to think of as The Kinetic Kid. I've only met The Kid a couple of times before, but each time he's been bursting with energy, practically bouncing off the walls. This was my first time to see him dancing, and it was quite a spectacle: twisting, turning, spinning, dropping to one knee while the girl danced around him, The Kid was in constant motion and made sure his partner was too. Not too long after we got there he grabbed country dancing neophyte Rocker Girl and took her out on the dance floor, subjecting her to all of the convoluted spinning and turns that he'd been doing with the long time dancers; I decided that The Kinetic Kid does not believe on easing folks into things, an idea which was confirmed when he later grabbed Squiggly and did the same with her.

But the real stars of the dance floor** were The Cardinal and Cap'n Cluck.


Cluckity, of course, has been dancing all of her life, and in The Cardinal she's found a dance partner who is capable of doing all of the super-crazy moves and lifts she loves.


There's one lift where I swear he's about to suplex her; perhaps not surprisingly, it was such a near-suplex move which directly preceded The Incident.

It was close to closing time, and a good portion of our group had already cleared out for the evening; think Cluckity and I were the only two Singles left. Cap'n Cluck wanted to dance one more time with The Cardinal so they could do all of the tricks they hadn't managed to do earlier in the evening, so she went and requested an appropriate song from the DJ. Once the requested song started playing, she immediately grabbed The Cardinal and rushed onto the dance floor. They had barely gotten through a lift or two when a security guard approached them and said "The manager doesn't want you doing that sort of stuff," which seemed a little odd, since they'd been doing that sort of stuff all night long. Cluck was livid; The Cardinal tried to be the voice of reason***, saying the he had never been kicked out of a club or bar in his life. Cluckity's response? "There's a first time for everything." They stayed out on the floor and finished the dance, keeping things relatively low-key; the security guys were busy trying to get the grinding train-wreck threesome to vacate the floor, but the one who had initially spoken to our dancing duo kept his beady eyes on them, ready to pounce if they did the least little lift. As soon as the song was over, Cluck stormed off the floor and declared that she was ready to go, and she wasn't really planning on ever coming back.

But, despite the downer ending of the evening, Cap'n Cluck's B-day Dance Party was, on the whole, a rousing success, and the b-day girl spent most of the evening with a smile on her face and a flashing tiara on her head.

Oh, did I forget to mention the flashing tiara?


My bad.

*What, you thought that just because it was her b-day party that the post would be all about Cluckity? Silly blog monkeys!
**Outside of the really gross threesome whose grinding on the middle of the dance floor was akin to the train wreck you want to look away from but can't
***Shocking, I know