Day Nine

It takes two to tango. And indeed, there are currently a pair of ladies tangoing across my living room. Another two are waltzing their way through the kitchen. There are nine dancers in total, all wearing dresses of the Victorian style, with the five I haven’t mentioned focusing on ballet-, belly-, break-, tap-, and pole-dancing, respectively.¹ What I find most impressive, though, is that they’re all doing this to the same exact music. Currently, we’re listening to Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls.”

My favorites are the two pairs of ladies cycling through the traditional ballroom and swing dances. Every once in a while, they’ll even let me cut in to see if I remember what I learned in a ballroom dance class eight years ago.² The breakdancer spends the majority of her time on the floor, so she’s Sonya’s favorite, and has been tackled by the dog three times (and counting). The rest aren’t all that exciting, though I will say that belly-dancing looks especially weird when set to non-belly-dancing music and done wearing a frilly turquoise ball gown.

Yeah, I don’t know what she’s doing, either.

Nevertheless, with nine women spinning and swinging through the house, we had to roll up all the tarps, push all the furniture to the walls, and shift anything even slightly valuable to one of the upstairs rooms. And when I say we, I mean: me and Denise. The eight maids — and the three hens dressed as maids — did nothing but sit back and watch us clean everything up.

The maids, though they’re a complete waste of space and keep getting in the way of the dancers, aren’t costing me much as expected, since each one is still nursing the same drink she had yesterday. Everyone else, however, is slowly milking me of my savings. I now have to feed nineteen birds (including those uppity, brie-eating hens) and nineteen people (including the uppity, brie-eating ballet dancer), to say nothing of the dog (and the cat). I have to pay an exorbitant noise ordinance fine, and what I’m sure will be exorbitant cell phone and electric bills. And of course I’ll have to hire a plumber and a couple other specialists to undo everything the geese are doing in the basement.

I’ve been looking for ways to offset some of these costs. I haven’t yet heard back from Michael Phelps’ people about the swan race, but the Verizon people did leave me a message about the parrot. So far, they’re low-balling me with their offer, but I’ll wait them out. I’m also in talks with HGTV to get the geese their own home “improvement” show.

Ooh, sorry, I have to go: the upstairs bathroom is free. It’s not that I actually have to go, but with eighteen women in the house, it could be six hours before I get another chance, and—uh oh, the tap dancer’s coming up the stairs... gotta run!


¹ That last one even brought her own pole.
² Nope.