The Chicken Dance

Today I was grumpy. I know why I was grumpy, but it doesn't really matter and I couldn't change of the factors involved. It's boring to be grumpy. It is boring to be the person has to deal with the grump. I was trying to just crank over and get the grump out of the system but nothing was particularly effective.

I arrived to get the boys at school this afternoon and had a few minutes to wait. Noticing that my car's dashboard and all other flat surfaces were disgustingly dirty and covered with pollen I grabbed my pack of Windex Wipes and started to clean. That's the kind of OCD girl I am. I have Windex Wipes in my car...all the time. Sigh.

As I wiped away the gross grime a car pulled into the adjoining parking lot. The sound of a boisterous and incredibly loud accordion rendition of The Chicken Dance was pulsing out of this vehicle. Really? An accordion listener who blasts their music? Fascinating.

The car pulled in and out of a space about six hundred times before finally parking to their satisfaction. Either they were a perfectionist or just crazy. That mystery was solved when the car door opened. The volume of the music increased to deafening levels and out of the car emerged a very tall, very skinny elderly man. Seeing the line up of nannies, mothers, fathers and others waiting for their kids he began to dance. Not a lie. He hopped-one-foot-skipped and shimmied in a circle around his car. The Chicken Dance's ever increasing tempo beat frantically faster and faster as this senior citizen beanpole improv polka'd around the vehicle.

Awesome.

He didn't seem crazy in the clinical sense. He seemed crazy in the what-the-eff-do-you-care way. A way I can't imagine being ever, he just did what he wanted when he wanted because he wanted to. End of story.

As the music ended he reached in, turned off the radio, shut the car door and wandered over to sit on the chairs with a few other seniors who were hanging out at the establishment.

I found myself cackling with glee. Seriously, when have you ever seen such a thing? Never! Visions of family weddings, St. Patrick's Day colleen balls, New Year's parties, retirement parties, anniversary parties, all featuring aunts, uncles and cousins in various stages of non-sobriety doing The Chicken Dance. Normally dignified older ladies and gentlemen flapping their arms with abandon, typically cool and hip cousins shimmying their backsides as tailfeathers, small children losing their balance and wiping out on the dance floor. I could not stop laughing as the memories of the insanity crowded in.

Then a woman pulled her car into the space beside mine. As I looked over I see that she has taken out a Swiffer Duster and is attacking her dashboard and vents. HA! Let the crazies gather in one place, I say!

I was officially ungrumpy. Really, who could be grumpy in the face of such total lunacy? Not me.

By the way, the instructions to The Chicken Dance are available online here. No freaking kidding. It's awesome. Actually, extra awesome.