WHAT'S YOUR MAJOR?"

I had lunch with a friend who told me his daughter just graduated from college as a dance major. My sympathy was left hanging thick in the air, left unspoken because If you’re the father of a girl, "Advanced Pole" obviously crosses your mind.

Reality check: Dance is not a freaking academic subject. It's voluntarily (usually) - contorting your body, often to music - or perhaps to a chant, as in the case of ritual sacrifice, devil worship or perhaps to make it rain.

If you can get the thought of sloppy drunk men stuffing dollar bills into your little princess’ panties out of your mind, you’ll wonder how else she’ll support herself if she fails Pole 101.

Obviously, there’s only one option, which is teaching dance. Otherwise known as siphoning disposable income from suburban single moms who didn’t pass their pole auditions either. So begins the viscous cycle.

At the university level, what do you do in a classroom all day when you major in Dance? What can you possibly do sitting at a desk?

I can think of very few people with successful dance careers. Let’s see….Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and Gregory Hines. Maybe Mary Poppins. And then I think there’s a Geoffrey Ballet, but how the
Toys -R-Us Giraffe mascot relates to a ballet club (or troupe - with a silent “e” just to be more annoying) eludes me.

By the way if you want to name your kid Jeffrey, but opt for the spelling Geoffrey, you deserve a lifetime of painful kidney stones to make up for the total disregard for a life of ridicule you’re imposing on your son. Of course you may be one of the lucky ones who one day will get to see him perform Swan Lake in adult feety pajamas, and savor a singular tear of joy when some dude named Boris, Americanized to Bruce, hands him a dozen roses just off curtain.

So what are some electives when you major in a subject that’s really just a thing to do with your body? What’s the curriculum?

Nose Picking?

COURSE OUTLINE:
“By the end of the year students should be able to stick any finger up to the knuckle, pull out, roll and flick perfectly formed boogers in one fluid motion.” Life credit is given to all male class members with a valid drivers license, for their experience with this skill at every red light in history.

Students successfully completing this class are eligible for Hock a Loogey 101.

When my son switched from private Christian school where he was actually forced to think, to public school where thinking is severely discouraged, the idea of majoring in Dance with a minor in thumb sucking became perfectly clear.

I went to pick him up at school early yesterday and was told that he was watching lip synch practice.

This, just one day after I called the school to ask why he’s watcing Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs in science class and received a brief unintelligible note from his science teacher.

Excuse me? I said “Did you say Lip Synch?

Yes.

I picked up a stapler and smacked myself in the face with open end just to see if perhaps this was a weird dream, and I’d better get up before I was late for reality.

Six thousand years of history has seen many civilizations rise and fall. I think it’s safe to say we’re doomed.