I'll be smokin'

In the picture above is one of my best friends Amy Jetty & myself doing a little dancing. Amy and I have known each other since the eighth grade & have been dancing together since about a week after we met. The school had dances but we went ahead and spent a large amount of time dancing in our bedrooms, dancing with my mom’s broom, dancing in the car... ect. It was also in the eighth grade that we came across one of my mom's old party CD's that had Clarence Carter's hit Strokin' on it. Immediately I fell head over heels in love with the song. I played it over and over and over again. I had no idea it wasn't appropriate because I was clueless to what the words were. My version of strokin' went something like this-

When I start makin' LUNCH I don't just make LUNCH... I be SMOKIN'
That's what I be doin', huh
I be SMOKIN'

I SMOKE it to the east
And I SMOKE it to the west
And I SMOKE it to the woman that I love the best
I be SMOKING' (This is the part of the song where I would pretend I had a cigarette in my hand and blow out fake smoke)

Let me ask you somethin'...
What time of the day do you like to make LUNCH (OH, ABOUT NOON)
Have you ever made LUNCH just before breakfast (SOMETIMES I EAT PIZZA FOR BREAKFAST)
Have you ever made LUNCH while you watched the late, late show (ALL THE TIME)
Well, let me ask you this
Have you ever made LUNCH on a couch (OH YEAH... ESPECIALLY WHEN MOM ISN'T HOME)
Well, let me ask you this
Have you ever made LUNCH on the back seat of a car (DUH, EVERYTIME WE GO TO THE LAKE)
I remember one time I made LUNCH on the back seat of a car
And the police came and shined his light on me, and I said:

I'm SMOKING', that's what I'm doin', I be SMOKING


Now I am sure you can imagine my surprise my first time out dancing after I turned twenty one when my favorite song came on & I was the only one who pulled my fake cigs out and went smoking across the dance floor. I just didn't understand why I was the ONLY ONE that knew the dance....
Luckily someone caught on to my unfortunate misunderstanding of the lyrics and was willing to explain the song to me. I was a bit devastated and disgusted but the beat was still good so I laughed it off & kept dancing to it every time it came on.



Since Amy Jetty has been my best friend for so many years she understands my love for the song and how important it is we dance to it anytime we are out & it comes on. We never did learn the line dance so we usually just go to the middle and hook on to some people who seem to know it and try to follow along. A few weeks ago while we were out we did just that. As soon as I heard the song starting I jumped for joy, grabbed Amy, and headed out to the dance floor. As soon as we started dancing a very nice older gentleman took quite the interest in Amy. He was about 5'11 and maybe 93 pounds. He was wearing starched jeans and a cowboy hat that I am pretty sure he had just bought hours before. He didn't just know the words & steps to strokin, he also knew how to do the splits & spin his little fragile body in about 30 circles at a time. Within about fifteen seconds of us dancing with him his new cowboy hat was on Amy's head and he had dropped down to do the splits three or four times. Being the super nice girls that we are we tried to just laugh at each others dancing and let him spin like a top and drop whenever he felt the need. We continued to sing a long to the lyrics (The new ones that I just found out about) and dance with each other. About mid song Amy started getting a little excited about the lyrics that were coming up and began to wave her arms around all while shaking her hips and trying not to step on the cowboy that kept dropping below her. All of a sudden I heard a woman scream as if she was in a lot of pain. Amy had accidentally punched her in the nose while getting her strokin groove on. I tried to tell the girl we were sorry and sometimes the song just gets us excited. She ended up leaving the dance floor, possibly with a broken nose. Sure we felt bad but leaving the dance floor with her wasn't going to stop the pain she was experiencing so we continued making up our own steps and taking turns with the cowboy. At the end of the song we were really getting into the beat and singing all the words as loud as we could when I noticed our little friend went down (Probably to do the splits again) but never came back up. Oh no... Did our sexy strokin dance give the poor old man a heart attack? Or did he break his fragile little leg the last time he went down? None of the above- He was laying down on the dance floor holding his man area. YES Amy, accidentally got him too. She didn't just bump him, she did some damage. When I asked if he was okay he just couldn't seem to get the words out. Apparently the hit knocked the breath right out of him. He finally found it in himself to stand up slowly, lift his hat off her head, and inch his way off the dance floor.

I really did feel bad for him. Maybe we should have offered an ice pack but I think we both felt that was an area he should handle himself. The good news is a few hours later he was back on the floor doing the splits and putting his brand new hat on another woman that was much closer to his age.

As far as we know there was no permanent damage done to either victim. We never did see the girl Amy punched again, but I like to think she prob just went home to lay down from the impact of the hit. (Or maybe she's getting a nose job) who knows.

Amy now knows to be a little more careful with her dancing arms & now I always read the lyrics to songs before making up my own dances. - Life lessons learned.