She’s gone country — almost
- posted: 02 Oct. 2007
- scrollopinion@byui.edu
Every Wednesday night without fail, my roommate gets ready and heads on over to the MC West ballroom for some country dancing. She considers herself a regular, a title she has earned after three years of two-stepping and swinging. Asking me not to quote her on this, she admits she started going because of a crush on a young man.
Last summer she convinced me to go with her. Since coming to Idaho I have acquired a taste for country music, and I’ll admit, I was curious.
We arrived just after 8 p.m. and paid our dollar to get in. A disco ball cast specks of light on couples as they paraded around the room to twangy ballads about giving up on love, who’s cheating who and alcohol. At the end of a song, the young men escorted their ladies back to the edge of the gym and then scanned the row of waiting girls trying to decide who would make a good partner. The girls stood there looking unconcerned and confident, trying to catch a boy’s eye and smile at him, willing him to choose her.
To my horror, I found myself doing the same thing! I was caught in the middle of a hoedown version of speed dating and there I was on display. However, it wasn’t until a tall fellow wearing Wranglers, a plaid shirt and cowboy boots asked me to dance that I remembered I didn’t know the first thing about country dancing.
He kindly put up with me and showed me the basic slow-slow-quick-quick and kept on going, though I kept starting on the wrong foot or falling out of rhythm. He asked me a few questions without getting much of a reply. I could either talk or concentrate on my feet; I couldn’t do both. As he escorted me back, I could feel him mentally scratching me off the list of eligible young cowgirls. He had discovered me to be the imposter that I was.
I left that night with scuffmarks on my shoes where numerous cowboy boots had stomped on my toes. I probably wouldn’t be coming back. I thought it best to leave the country boys and country girls to each other. My roommate will continue to go until she meets her one and only and dances with him to the sound of Garth Brooks. 
