The Unexplained

I love to dance. At about 5 years, I was taught a polka step. I would dance around the edges of the living room amid the applause and admiration of my folks.

Grown up, I went to a dance. There was a fine young man present. I watched him dancing with different partners. He was a good dancer, knew more than the polka step I had learned so well. He seemed to be making the rounds and eventually approached me for a dance.

And it was a lovely time. When the dance was done, he clutched my shoulders, leaned his face into mine, and shoved me a little. As the music started for the next dance, he turned and walked away. I was left in the middle of the dance floor. Couples began to swirl around me as I stood there alone and stunned.

Of course, my partner was not obliged to me for the next dance but to leave me like that was not nice. My shame turned to anger. I recovered enough to stalk off the floor and return to my things. I considered the experience. Had I offended him somehow?

I was bothered. For one thing, my shoulders were not where my partner's hands were supposed to be. And we weren't SLAM dancing; there was no reason for that shove. I wisht my arm had swung round in a wide arc and connected the flat of my palm up the side of his head! That would have given him good reason to abandon me! And it might have been a fit response to that shove!

For another thing, as well as he could dance, it was obvious that he had some training. He surely knew that dance etiquette dictates the man escort the woman off the floor at the end of a routine. Had he meant to insult me? I thought he needed a "talking to" but didn't know how to accomplish that. Scanning the room, he was nowhere to be seen. So I sat there, seething on the sideline bleacher.

Finally he reappeared and resumed dancing, spinning new partners around the floor. Several dances later, he extended another invitation to me! Didn't he know how meanly he had behaved toward me? Still furious, I lifted my chin and stared down my nose at him (which was easy because I was on the top row and he was on the floor by the first row). I narrowed my eyes so he would know my irritation (but the lights were dim and obscured my expression). I wanted to return the humiliation and so I shook my head in refusal. But, without an accompanying explanation, how would that serve as sufficient correction of his impudent behavior; or of his ignorance, if that's what it was?

He turned aside and quickly found a new partner. A little later, I left the dance. After the weekend, I went back to work and life flowed on. The sting of that night faded from my memory.

Years later it resurfaced all of a sudden, and as I thought it over, I came to a new understanding. I could have accepted his second invitation to dance. All I had to do was make a condition, namely, extract from him a promise that after the dance he would escort me back to the place where he found me. That would have taught him, just in case he didn't know.

If he had agreed, well and good. If he had said, no; or accepted my term and left me anyhow, then I would know. What a SCAMP!

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SCAMP. Defined as a rascal, a rogue; an impish or playful young person. The word appears to be derived from a shortened form of "scamper," meaning, to run away.