Memory Monday: Broccoli Dance

For about 2 1/2 years of my life, my family lived in a really small town. The tiny dance studio where my sister and I took dance lessons for about a year is a place that gives me mixed feelings.

These mixed feelings consist of happy memories from my days of taking Tap/Ballet classes there every week with my friends. I had a lot of fun with my dance buddies (although we didn't keep in touch). : /

Then there were the somewhat-traumatizing memories, like the memories that included green balloons on my head and dancing to the song stylings of Huey, Dewey and Louie.

The owner of the dance studio was a friendly, eccentric middle-aged lady who liked to make her students dance to "silly" songs in their dance recitals. Of course, we needed uniforms to match these silly songs that we danced to. So... what do you suppose we dressed up as when she had us dance to "I've Been Working On My Broccoli," sung by said nasally, annoying cartoon ducks?

Too bad I don't have a picture... I happened to misplace them all. With fire.

It's quite a shame.

But just believe me when I say that the costumes were everything soul-eroding and spirit-crushing. The leafy part of the broccoli was accomplished in our costumes by pinning green balloons on our heads like some sort of game you'd win a giant teddy bear from. The dance itself was cold and mechanical, like a marching army of wind-up toy soldiers.

"But Kaylee," you might be thinking, "You just said that the town was really small. The recital couldn't have been that bad, right?"

Trust me. If it were a cute, intimate gathering of close friends and family, it would only be enough to chuckle uncomfortably about.

But in the inner makings of this woman's mind had to be a dark force that raged in a diabolical spiral that our tiny little 2nd grade minds couldn't yet detect.

No. We didn't just perform in front of friends and family. We performed at a recital. And a parade. And at the county fair. Not only did our families see us. Not only did the entire town see us. But the whole freaking county.

At the time, we didn't think anything too much about it. We were actually excited.

We were like innocent lambs going to slaughter. We walked through the crowded parade, throwing candy and waving, while everyone admired the "cute, little grapes."

Occasionally my friend Grace would indignantly correct them. "Hey! We're BROCCOLI!"

Onstage at the fair, we nervously executed our dance moves with empty precision and forced permagrins. I'd hate to have been in the audience to witness that kind of torture.

I left that day feeling pretty good about myself. I had danced in front of a whole bunch of people (Oh, Lord...), then I got to play games at the fair. Years later my family won't let me live it down, and the image of that broccoli costume shall be forever ingrained in my disturbed mind.

...And to this day, I can't dance and I hate broccoli. I often wonder if that had anything to do with it...