It takes two to tango

'So let's go dancing tonight!'. The voice of the director of the school where I teach English boomed out inappropriately across the office. I tutted. It was already late and I just wanted to get home to tea and cheese on toast. Think of the promotion, I reminded myself, the extra hours. 'OK Benito!', I answered before asking, 'Err, what sort of dancing exactly?'. 'Waltz, foxtrot, tango....' The list spiralled on dizzily. I gripped the nearest thing in a panic, it was the secretary. She wrestled herself free, scowling. 'So not...errr.....disco then?'. I guess not. An hour later, having stopped off for the director to change his shoes to dance more comfortably and after 3 limoncellos to steady the nerves we found ourselves standing at the side of the dance floor surveying the clearly competent participants whirling around effortlessly. 'What's this dance then?' Enquired the clearly enthusiastic director. I stared back blankly. It sounded gallopy but I doubted that was actually a dance. 'It's the......' and I mumbled an incoherent word. He strained in, grimacing. 'What?' I repeated, 'The.........'. He tapped his ear as if to say, can't hear a thing. Good, first hurdle. 'It's time to dance!' He announced triumphantly, clapping his hands together. I groaned. Visions of cheese on toast floated enticingly but elusively before me. I had an idea in my mind that even if you danced badly, if you did it with a confident look on your face, you could get away with it.....I was wrong. Before I knew it, there I was, being whirled around, the limoncello churning violently inside me. I kept stepping on the director's feet. 'Tut', I thought. 'Clearly he's out of practice'. Apart from the fact that he used to run a dance school before setting up the English school..... We stopped mid tango. 'Why's he doing that?' I thought. I waited. Actually it's a tango pause. I stepped on his feet again. We lurched and rolled and tripped our way round the dance floor. He glared at me. I apologised. It's not like I was doing it on purpose. The spectators were highly amused. Like watching the competitor ice skaters, willing them to fall..... At the end of the tango, I threw myself back. I've seen it done in films, a dramatic ending to an...errr....undramatic dance.....The sudden movement unbalanced the by now disillusioned director. We went tumbling down..... The band came to an abrupt stop, the needle being scratched off a record. So there I was, Friday night, in the middle of a, by now, relatively deserted dance floor, on my back, under my portly boss. Not quite what I had envisaged for a quiet wind-down to the week. The perspiration was seeping through his shirt. Whether this was due to the exertion or the excitement, I was unsure. He looked shocked and staggered with great effort to his feet. I followed suit. 'So should I have put my LEFT foot forward that time then...?' I enquired, trying to make light of a heavy situation. I looked skyward. 'Just once, ONCE, let me have a NORMAL night out'....