Daddy Daughter Dance

The other night I had the pleasure of escorting my 6 year old daughter to the daddy daughter dance. I was unaware that the dance was a 50’s themed sock hop and showed up in my shirt and tie accompanied by my daughter in a beautiful dress. Driven by our mission to be together and have fun, we walked undeterred into the dance which was filled with dads in cuffed jeans and white t-shirts and daughters wearing poodle skirts and God knows what.

Midway through the evening the DJ announced that the daddy daughter hula-hoop contest was about to begin. Despite the fact that I had covered my daughters ears as he said hula-hoop, she still heard and insisted that we participate. So me in my tie and my daughter in her Sunday dress got in line with the doo-wop dads and poodle skirted daughters to wait for our shot at fame. We were near the end of the line so I had ample time to eyeball our competition. Most of the dads were too large to fit into the hula-hoop and the others were clearly unskilled hula-hoopers so the DJ allowed them to hula-hoop with their arms. “Amateurs!”, I thought to myself as we neared the front of the line “We are going to take these fools down.” Then I spotted my real competition. Some guy that looked like Bowser from Sha Na Na was hula-hooping with his arm and switching arms mid-hula as if to add another level of difficulty. He was going to be easy to take down, but his daughter was some kind of hula-hooping robot. She just kept going and going, hula-hooping and hula-hooping even when the music stopped for the next group to come in she just kept going! Then it was our turn. We got our hula-hoops and my daughter looked up at me, her face aglow with excitement. I smiled back at her and said, “Let’s do this thing”. We made hula-hooping history that night, my daughter and me, as we captivated the hearts and minds of everyone watching the end of the daddy daughter dance hula-hooping competition. Our hula-hoops didn’t touch the floor once as the other contestants walked off the floor with their heads hung in shame.

High off of our recent championship, I started busting out some of my best dance moves on the spot. The robot and the worm followed by the lawn mower, then the sprinkler and my version of the backspin. I could tell that everyone was very impressed with my moves, and the fact that I was totally pulling them off to 50’s music, by the way they were all pointing and staring. I know the DJ was impressed because he announced over the speakers, “I can’t believe this guy is doing that!”. I was on a roll! I waved at my daughter and I could see that her friends were backing away from her to give her room to dance too but she must have had to go to the bathroom because her face got red and she ran out of the gym. I moon-walked out behind her to make sure she washed her hands when she was done. She said she had and she was ready to leave.

This is a close up of me “riding the donkey”

I could tell that the dance had taken a lot out of her because she was too tired to talk all the way home and she was sweating from her eyes. I can’t wait til next year’s daddy daughter dance! This time though, I am going to make sure to dress with the theme. It was just a little bit embarrassing being the only guy wearing a tie.