Doing the Twist (and Squirm)

So my daughter is taking a dance class. A combination of tap and ballet. That’s not really pertinent, I just thought it would add a little more description and answer any questions you might have about the career path I’m putting her on. Shame on you.

Anyway, despite it being an innocent tap/ballet class for 3-5 year olds, involving no tawdry moves whatsoever, it’s still awkward. The waiting part, that is. The class is 45 minutes and, for me, finding something to do while she dances is awkward.

The lobby of the dance studio is small, particularly when it fills up with teen and pre-teen girls waiting for another class to start or waiting for rides after a class has ended. When these moments converge, which is every week, I become keenly aware that I’m the only member of the male population in sight. I don’t just stick out like a sore thumb, but more like a hand that is missing its thumb. Or an actual thumb, unattached to anything, lying on the ground. Possibly bloody. Yeah, come to think of it, the dismembered thumb is probably bloody because I really stick out.

Besides that, there aren’t many places to look. All the teenage girls are dressed as if they just finished an outdoor yoga class. As a father, all I can think is they need to have more clothes on (my daughter is covered head-to-toe with only her arms exposed, and I’m not totally cool with that either). I used to wonder if any of them were uncomfortable with me being there while they walked around in little more than beach attire, but based on the amount of giggling, it’s just me. The girls, as if you don’t know already, giggle in quantities that can’t be duplicated without large amounts of pot. “Look at the thumb in the corner,” they must be saying.

Fortunately there is a window in the lobby that looks into my daughter’s dance room, but it’s not very big and the other four parents gather around it to watch as well. During the few times I’ve gone to the class instead of my wife, I have squeezed alongside the other parents, all moms, for a few minutes at a time, but the little ones get distracted from seeing us. Not to mention I get claustrophobic. Not in the “I can’t catch my breath” sort of way, but more in the “Oh, there are other people here?” sort of way.

Since one of the walls of the dance room is a full window looking out into the parking lot, I can always stand outside in the parking lot and look in through the giant window wall. But the problem with that is, standing outside by myself staring into a room full of dancing four-year-old girls, I wouldn’t look so much like a thumb as I would a giant pervert. Particularly since there’s a window inside that I can look through without appearing pervy. The only person who would choose to stand outside and look in is someone who doesn’t have the option of going inside to watch. Someone who is on a list that the police might pass around your neighborhood, for instance.

I’m not sure what my options are at this point, but standing around the lobby full of giggling tweeners is out of the question. I might look through the window wall from the parking lot just for the joy of making other people uncomfortable, but that could lead to phone calls. Plus winter is coming.

(Sigh) Soccer season can’t get here fast enough.