typical family gathering

I was at my grandmom and pop-pop's giant 90th wedding anniversary or whatever, and the relative who put this party together hired a DJ who got everyone on the dance floor. It felt like everyone was up there because I was not up there since I was too shy to dance. After several songs, when I was getting used to sitting and staring at everybody (this was before I got a cell phone, so I had nothing to even play with; I just ate a plate of cookies that appeared in front of where I was sitting at some point during the night) -- and practiced saying, "I'm alright," to everyone after they told me I should go up and dance -- my mom finally got the nerve to drag me up to the dance floor just as Michael Jackson's "Rock with You" started. People applauded the song; it's a favorite among everybody.

Mom actually told me how to dance, saying, "Move your legs; look, like I'm doing - in rhythm...go on, swing your arms."

But I could not. I simply...stood. I mumbled that I hoped the song would end soon; she asked me to repeat what I said and I did. I was not ashamed to look like a buzzkill, but I was ashamed to do what is humanly possible - dance, which doesn't make any humanly sense.

The song did end and my laborious, loving mother let me return to my table of solitude, where everybody stopped hanging out at an hour ago because that's when dessert ended and the partying was supposed to begin. But I just left my mom unsatisfied with the fact that I am a boring son, a boring son who would go on later in life to fall for indie rock music, sweet, danceable indie rock that I dance to by myself. But I dance, at least.