Where have all the advice columns gone? We need someone to help all of us cowboys with our square dance problems!
“Every letter guaranteed genuine!”
Dear Danny Dee,
I’ve been dancing with the Times Squares for some time and have become an enthusiastic advocate of Square Dancing. Feel like I’m getting some good, healthy exercise and having a lot of fun in the process. Have made may friends in the club, and trips to fly-ins and conventions ha e really been a joy. Truly a great way to meet some terrific men and women.
However, some of these folks arrive at the events smelling as tho’ they just rode in off the range, and while a “natural” smell may be a turn on to some, and everyone perspires during a vigorous “tip”, there’s also a point where it can be a real turn OFF.
Can Danny Dee suggest a tactful way to hint, “Partner, you’re pretty ripe” or “Your breath would stop a herd of Buffalo?”
Yours truly,
Squeaky Clean
Dear Squeaky,
Bucko, I showed your letter to my mother. She said, “At last.”
“Momma,” I said, “Do I offend?”
She said, “Son, sometimes you come home in that pink polyester gut-up of yours smellin’ like compost. Baby, it’s your life. But I dread the day one of your square dancin’ friends recognizes me at the Piggly Wiggly.”
It was an epiphany, S.C. If your letter was directed at me, thanks. If not, I thank you just the same.
Gentle readers, B.O. is a no-go. As ol’ Squeaky here says, square dancin’ is “good, healthy exercise.” Let’s keep it that way. We don’t want partners careening off into the next square, woozy from lack of oxygen. Or crossing arms with the rest of the square at the end of a tip and while you’re sayin’ “Thaaaaank you!” he’s sayin’ “Peeeeeee U!” Sometimes, we’re just too close to our own funk to perceive it. I was. Let’s clean up.
On the other hand, if I can sort of float a suggestion-easy on the toiletries. Between the perfumed deodorant soap and the “fresh scent” underarm stuff; the scented hair mousse and the ‘lightly’ scented body talc; the ‘lemon’ scented laundry detergent, the “April fresh” fabric softener, the “lavender” spray starch, the “mint” mouth wash and the $50 designer cologne … you can end up some kind of floral stink pot.
These scented things sound soothing and urbane. But compadres most of these prods would give a small child a rash. From now on, let’s think “Baby clean.”
Thanks again S.C.
-D.D.