Bookends of Conflict......

We started out the day with a girl fight over a cell phone, the second time in ten days this particular flake student has had a cell phone "stolen." She accused another girl, someone who usually avoids conflict like the plague. The accused took all she could take, then she proceeded to beat the slop out of the accuser. Whose cell phone turned up in the parking lot when her mother came to pick her up from school. They are both suspended from school for the rest of the week. Too bad for one of them; not enough for the other.

Then at line dancing tonight ........ LINE DANCING FERCRYINOUTLOUD ....... AT THE YMCA!!!!! ....... there was a near mutiny. I won't bore you with the details, but there are two twits in the line dancing group who like to show off and put turns, spins, leaps, and silliness into the dances where they aren't choreographed. One of them is a high school cheerleader, so you can almost forgive her. The other one is grown, though, and should know better. We were into our first dance of the night when one of the regulars marched out. She'd had all the silliness she could take. Then Mr. Patel, who must be around 70 years old but loves him some line dancing, began to complain, saying if those two were going to disrupt the rest of us, they should go stay in the back. [I didn't bother pointing out that in line dancing we often rotate and face all four walls, and they would at some point HAVE to be in the front.]

Our sweet little (she must weigh all of 90 pounds) instructor tried to tell him that she can't tell people HOW to dance, and he continued to complain. Loudly.

They get on my nerves too, but I mostly ignore them. I guess I can see both sides of the issue. They are entitled to do the dances any way they see fit, but I can also see where Mr. Patel and some of the others might find them a bit distracting. Some people aren't secure enough in their own dancing, and they depend upon watching some of the other dancers. If what they're watching isn't what they've been taught, they get confused. This is, however, billed as an "advanced beginner to intermediate" class, and many of them have been dancing together since last summer.

Personally, I've had my fill of conflict already this week.