Middle School Dance Day!
Tonight, when you walk past your neighborhood middle school, you will hear loud Top 40 music pumping from its open doors. Just inside the doors you will see bunches of children dressed nicely. You will realize they are attending a school dance.
You'll pause in your walk, watching the kids awkwardly flirt and tease each other. Your mind will drift back to your own middle school dance. You'll remember a kiss you stole on the dance floor. A sip of alcohol in the boys' room. But most of all, you'll remember coming home and finding your minister father waiting up for you so that he can admonish you for whatever sins of the flesh he assumed you had committed that night.
You slept on your belly that night, the lashings of his horsehair whip too fresh on your back. You were pulled out of school not long after that and forced to help your father build a new church (he died before that church heard him give a single sermon). Listening to the sound of that dance tonight will make you think it's about time you got your GED.
Happy Middle School Dance Day!
