A Strange Story

Okay and now something different. I have no clue why I wrote this and never posted it, but I found this in the draft folder from December 2009. Enjoy. I’ll be back to writing this weekend.

This is what happened on Wednesday night.

The twins and I were at an old community center where I used to take art classes. We were visiting a friend at her office, which was located next to the pottery studio. After I pointed out this room as we were exiting the building, the ChickieNob asked if the ballet studio was nearby too because she knew I had taken a multitude of dance classes at this center as well.

We poked around until we found the dance studio which was inhabited at the time by two women in their sixties or so. I showed the ChickieNob the room and told the women that I had danced at that studio back in the early ’80s. One of the women began reminiscing with me about old dance teachers I remembered and a performance of Peter Rabbit I was in with my sister when we were little.

She turned to the twins and said, “would you like to see a picture of your mommy and aunt dressed like rabbits? Follow me!”

So we followed her. Except the first thing she did was walk into the women’s bathroom in the hallway. Which sort of gave me pause. I mean, did she honestly want an entourage as she peed? It’s a little awkward, you know, following a sixty-year-old woman into a bathroom just to see a bunny picture, but we’re not faint-of-heart. So after a pause, we went in after her.

Except like the White Rabbit, she was still moving, not pausing (oh her ears and whiskers!) as she cut through a back entrance to the bathroom. We were now in a different hallway and we caught up with her, chatting about the various classes I had taken over the years.

We walked for about ten minutes, trailing down stairways and through long wings of buildings until we came to a security door in the underground passageway. The woman used an electronic key to wave us in–and I’d like to pause for a moment to admit that I thought this was crack assward and strange. I mean, why would they place a dance studio director’s office so far from the dance studio. But we followed her anyway.

We walked a bit further, chatting about my mother, old teachers, this absolutely strange underground area that felt like the crypts beneath St. Peter’s in the Vatican (oh…and yes…I’ve been beneath St. Peter’s, but that is a different insane story involving myself getting swept up with a bunch of priests). Finally, she paused outside a random door that looked like it led to an aftercare-type classroom. We could definitely hear children inside.

We followed her into the room at which point she turned to us and said, “is there something you need?”

“Um…,” I said. “We’ve been following you because you told my children that you wanted to show them a picture of me dressed like a bunny.”

“What?” the woman admonished. “They’re not here. They’re at my house. I keep those photographs at my house. I was asking if you wanted to come to my house to see them.”

Everyone in the room stared at us.

“Um…,” I continued. “You actually said, ‘follow me’ which is why we have been following you.”

“How did you get in here? This is a security-protected area.”

“You let us in,” I pointed out. “With your electronic key. We’ve been talking this whole time…no?”

I bowed my way out of the room and waited until we got in the hallway to start muttering to the twins, “that was strange, that was so strange, that was really really strange.”

Except we didn’t know how to get out. Because we were underground. And we had been talking through a multitude of passageways and through doors and up and down stairs for 10 minutes. So we had to figure our way out of the building and finally found our way back to the school that is on the main floor.

“I am buying myself a cup of coffee after this,” I told the twins as we passed the cafe in the front lobby.

“I have no energy,” the ChickieNob announced, spying a display of muffins as I waited for my coffee. “I cannot even stand anymore because I am so tired from that strange walk. I’m just going to lie down on the floor.”

And she proceeded to lie down on the floor of the cafe.

And her brother joined her.

And that’s how I ended up buying them a blueberry muffin because I literally couldn’t handle embarrassing ourselves one more time that day in that building.

We finally exited to the parking lot, almost 45 minutes after we meant to leave. When we got in the car, I buckled them in and said, “you know how I once told you that when you’re older you can take a dance class there? Well, I take it all back.”

And no one needed me to explain why.