Revenge sweet, even on the dance floor

My wife loves to dance. Not me.

After 12 beers, I will perhaps do the “frug,” a dance that may be unknown to those who don’t know that Paul McCartney sang in a band before Wings.

This sad spousal conflict cropped up recently.

My wife and I have been going to a Spokane lounge that offers old and new dance music. I sit at the bar and guard my wife’s purse while she dances ballroom style with our dear friend, “Dancin’ Bob.” Bob is a retired military man and knows how to act like a gentleman, and always does.

While they dance, it is my job to watch the sports channel on the lounge TV, chat with the other patrons and not do the “frug” (ever again).

This situation worked well for all involved. So, of course, someone came along to ruin a good thing.

Last Christmas, that someone, whom I thought had been my friend for 30 years, gave my wife and me a gift certificate for private ballroom dance lessons.

My wife does not see the dark treachery in one man giving dancing lessons to another man who is married to a woman who likes to dance.

I asked my former friend, “Why did you do this?”

“I couldn’t come up with a Christmas present, so I randomly opened the Yellow Pages, and there it was: Dance Instruction.”

The local phone book offers one page of “Dance Instruction” in the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene area. That is only one page out of nearly 1,000 (specifically 961) Yellow Pages.

“Right after Dance Instruction, the next page heading is Darts and Dart Boards,” I said.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, instead of two-stepping, I could be throwing darts at a new board. Or better yet, you could have ‘randomly’ opened the yellow pages to Televisions and HDTV Big Screens.”

“Gee, I screwed up, man,” the villain responded with his innocent veneer beginning to peel off.

Fie on friendship.

After rather pointed encouragement from my own Ginger Rogers, I telephoned the dance studio and scheduled us for a class with Marianna, the ballroom instructor.

Seeing a student walk in the door wearing size 13 1/2 shoes must be unnerving to a dance instructor. I asked Marianna if I was the biggest, clumsiest tangle-foot with whom she had ever danced.

“Certainly not,” she answered, putting my mind at ease. However, I did feel renewed discomfort when she was not able to name anyone more clumsy than myself. She said it is against The Dance Instructor Code Of Ethics to give out those names.

“You did very well,” Marianna lied to me at the end of the lesson. “Please practice during the week, and I will see you next Thursday.”

My wife and I pledged to practice at home and then at our favorite dance spot.

Marianna got a frightened look in her eyes, which she focused intently upon me, “Do not publicly announce that you are my student until I say it’s OK, please?”

I think Marianna’s “until-I-say-it’s-OK” may come on that day when some mortician is in charge of shoeing my cold, danced-out feet.

But by then I will be content to pass on, since I have been able to repay my former friend with a special late Christmas present.

I did not find it in the phone book. I found it on the Internet at www.drphil.com.

There, I clicked on “Be In The Audience,” filled out the form and waited for the tickets to arrive.

Now my former best friend and his girlfriend have tickets to an upcoming Dr. Phil Show at Paramount Studios in Hollywood. She loves Dr. Phil.

The topic of their Dr. Phil show is “Men Who Can’t Commit.” My former best friend is worse at “committing” than I am at dancing.

Revenge may make me a small and petty person.

But, on the bright side, it also makes me want to dance.