When Words Collide, Sentences Form

Line Dancing For One

I didn't get to see everything on my Top Ten list of things I wanted to see at the airport when I flew down to Florida yesterday, but I did see something I never thought I would see...a girl practicing her line dancing while waiting to get on her flight.

I had to connect in Atlanta, and when I got to the gate for the final leg of my journey, I saw a woman close to my age standing near the seats near the window, listening to an ipod. She kind of had her hand out like she was meditating and then brought them back in front of her, and repeated. I thought, "Oh, I wonder if she gets stressed out flying and is trying to calm herself or something." Seemed logical and not strange to me. So I went to the seats over in that area because there were a bunch open, and I shortly figured out why.

Before I knew it, this girl had broken out into a spin and then heel-toe-heel-toe and tip your hat and shuffle left. Yes, she was line-dancing in the Atlanta airport. By herself. To the music in her ipod. Which I guess is better than dancing to the music in her head in the Atlanta airport.

So I tried to read my book but it was really hard not to stare at this girl doing line dances in front of me. And no one else at the gate could stop staring either. The funny thing was that she wasn't doing the full energy line-dancing. And here's the best way to describe what she looked like.

You know the girl at the country bar that knows all of the steps to all of the dances and either is at the club by herself every weekend or maybe her friends don't dance and just join her for the beers and the cute butts? And when she's on the dance floor she tries to act like she is too cool to put energy and excitement into the steps - she's trying to look like she doesn't really care. So her movements are smaller - just basically going through the steps like the way that a figure skater does his or her routine in a mini-version on land while preparing for their performance.

Or the skinny little cowboy-wannabe that's at the country bar wearing a pair of tight Wranglers, cowboy boots that are a half-size too small and the plaid shirt tucked in all the way so that it doesn't even have a little bit of a "blouse" to it at the waist, and of course the obligatory brown leather belt with giant belt buckle with a bronco on it. He is permanently bent forward just a little bit at he waist so that you always wonder if he might just fall forward for no real reason. And he dances the whole time with his thumbs in his front belt loops, so he only does the footwork and kind leans with his shoulders to shadow the hand motions. But he is also attempting to be cool and blend in since he's the dorky cowboy that the girls don't really like that much. So in his attempt to be cool and show that he doesn't really care either - he has the restricted motion dance moves, too.

That's exactly what this girl did. Only she was doing the little mini-dance moves because there wasn't enough room for her to do the full-out dance. And everytime a new song came up on her ipod, an article of clothing would come off - a jacket, sweater. I was getting worried that if our flight was delayed and she got to dance to many more songs then I was going to have to find some $1 bills to tip her.

Yes, in the aiport in Atlanta.

posted by Steph @ 7:29 PM