Zumba (HP premiere day make-up post)

Now, everyone knows how I feel about fat Americans. We are doing our best to serve our nation. However, in a lapse of judgement, I went to a workout class with a friend. This wasn't your typical, Richard Simmons, jazzercize class. No, this was Zumba. Now, I don't know the origin of Zumba but, judging from its name sounding like a water slide at Holiday World, I'd say it's African.

When I arrived my worst fears were confirmed. My friend and I were easily the youngest people there; by thirty years. Everyone is the class seemed to be doing their best to make America #1 but had fallen off the bandwagon. I was hoping hard work and sweat would be enough to get me back on that lazy train.

The teacher was a small woman who reminded me faintly of a sprite. She was very excited to sweat and I couldn't figure out why. She jumped right into turning on reggae music about chocolate and pretty women. This upset my African theory because it was all in Spanish. She started doing these steps and bends and expected everybody to just immediately know what was happening. As I started 'dancing' I couldn't help but feel as though I was having a multicultural experience. The name was Africa, the music Hispanic, and the dance steps were most certainly white.

I didn't even start breathing heavily until thirty minutes into the class. When I looked around I saw all of the women looking exhausted. Now, I have a small dance background and I started to recognize what I can only describe as a creative bastardization of actual dance steps. Some steps were tap moves done horribly wrong. I had to un-teach myself proper tap to do the moves correctly. I'm also used to having steps named in french or being named after the originator. In Zumba, you experience moves like the "machete" and "chocolate." Names that give you absolutely no indication of what you are supposed to do. My teacher would yell out these names and expect me to know what dance move best represents a physicalization of a machete.

I left the class feeling like a proper white American. I danced embarrassingly bad, pretended I was working out, and used exotic names and music to pretend I care about other cultures. So I think Zumba is a great American institution. Also, it's no risk to America becoming the fattest country.

Gnomes, Elves, and Conspiracies, oh my!

So though my post time may be lying to you and reading as though I wrote this yesterday, an actual Thursday, it's a shame. A lie. I wrote this on a Friday morning because I worked and then was out all night. That's another lie to seem cool. I was sitting in my basement watching movies with a friend. See how less cool that is? However, I am eating as I write this, so at least that's consistent.

Anyway, I was working at my large, nameless corporation with a giant Thanksgiving parade, folding things. I was folding, and folding, and folding, until one of my co-workers laughed and said,
"Those shirts are always messy. We don't seem to sell very many though."

I turned to him and, very seriously, replied, "That's because the  store gnomes hate when the shirts are neatly folded. It is an affront to their gnomey religion."

He laughed awkwardly and then sidled away.

It sounds ridiculous, but think about it. How do you explain the worlds greatest mysteries? How do these shirts no one buys get thrown across the store without anyone noticing? How do your headphones get tangled when you put them neatly away? Where do all those elf cookies come from?!

I have a  theory.

Gnomes, elves, faeries (or fairys for those who are WRONG), they are all the same thing. There are two main types of these small, fiction-esque creatures. There are the nice ones. These are the elves who make us cookies, the popping cereal guys, the elves who sneak in to help poor shoemakers make more shoes. They seemed to be completely happy with human society (hey, the cookie and cereal guys are even capitalists!). These are the gnomeelffaeries that should be allowed to stay and coexist with humans. The next type should be exterminated to the full effect of the pre-Geneva convention war-crime law system.

I fully believe that every small inconvenience is the fault of a gnome. When my pants go missing? Gnome. Headphones a mess? Gnome. My purse is emptied of all my credit cards and money? Gnoooooome. It is my belief, (and as an American I am therefore permitted to treat it as fact) that gnomes are religious fanatics. They have to have things in a certain disorder. Headphones must be tangled because their god Hopensfieldyrh has stated that if headphones ever are all untangled at the same time then the world thread will unravel and the seams of the universe will come apart. Clothing must be moved or unfolded due to another god, Looqui, the elfin god of mischief. If an area of clothing remains too clean then he will fly into a rage and eat first born females.

This is all nonsense, of course. Every female in modern civilization knows that MEN are the first-borns anyone cares about. And "seams of the world" coming apart? Please. It is common knowledge that the Earth that we know is built on the tears of the suffering of innocents.

So, the next time you see an elf, gnome, or faerie, observe it. Determine which type of gnome it is. If it seems to follow capitalist laws, leave it be. If not, capture it and force it to watch situation comedies and televangelists until it is properly civilized.