I shoot too high.

Allie, my friend's daughter, needs to help out a girlfriend by finding students to take a tap class at the Palms Rec Center. I'm a sport, I used to tap dance, I still have shoes. I sign up. I love it. For one thing, there are no mirrors at the Rec Center, and for another, this class is beginning, really beginning. Shuffle step. Shuffle step. I'm a star. I actually consider leg warmers. I'm a dancer. I can't wait to get to the Rec Center every Thursday night and dance like a middle aged white female Savion Glover. No mirrors, no ugly truth. I lose a half a pound...in a month! I get cocky. So when an acquaintance tells me that LOUIS VAN AMSTEL FROM DANCING WITH THE STARS is teaching cardio ballroom right up the street at Richard Simmons studio, I'm there. I am a huge dance fan. And I can tap.

I am by far not the oldest or fattest person in the class. However, with the addition of mirrors, I go into serious shock. I SUCK! and little old white haired ladies are better, and faster than I am. And in 3 minutes I am pouring sweat. At ten minutes I have to pretend to run outside to put money in my meter so I can sit on the curb and catch my breath. I come back in and go to the back corner of the studio, where I wave my arms a bit and pretend to move my feet. Louis moves like lightning. I move like tar. He yells " shake it, you lazy bitches!" I'm sure he's looking right at me.