Boogie By The Bay - 2001

Boogie By The Bay is a west coast swing (“WCS”) event in California that I’ve really enjoyed in the past. It's loads of fun. I've attended twice before. I was registered to go again and had already purchased my airline tickets. Then 9/11 happened. I was really pretty fractured over the disaster, had experienced it first-hand, and worked five blocks from the WTC. I found I was over reacting to many people and different every-day situations. The aftermath was quite an awful experience for all of us and had me quite uncomfortable about flying so soon after (I was reserved for Oct. 4). But after calling myself a big baby, I decided to go, despite my reservations. I had two friends from the New York area going, as well, and sharing a room with me - my good friend, Olivia, and my equally good friend, Joe. Olivia is not typically a WCS dancer (she’s more into Cajun and contra). And, while Joe is, he is inclined to mix it up with other styles. I love that.

So, I showed up at the airport to check in (At the crack of dawn. No, it’s even before that - it’s 4:30am), and the first thing that happened was one of the check-in agents took one look at me and yelled over to a seemingly FBI agent, “SECURITY‼‼” I didn’t understand what had triggered this. Meanwhile, I had had a married couple right next to me on line. The guy kept kidding around, saying quite loudly that he could, and might have a gun in his bag. His wife kept telling him to shut up. So, off goes my suitcase to be x-rayed, x-rayed a second time, then I was brought in, with my suitcase, by an FBI agent who was wearing vinyl gloves into a private room. He then hand searched my suitcase. You can imagine my embarrassment as the agent sifted through all my sleazy dance outfits.

Getting to the hotel in S.F. was no big deal (not that I can remember, anyway). So, we spent our first evening dancing, and the next morning was the first time that Olivia was due to meet Joe for the very first time. Now, Joe has told me in the past that he is shy. And, although you would think otherwise because he's such a prankster, I believe him, because I’m shy too. As a result of being shy, I find that I do sometimes behave in a very strange manner and get myself into situations. So, I greet Joe (who arrived one day after us) in the hotel’s lobby. Joe’s quite handsome - premature wavy grey hair and blue eyes. As we're walking toward the elevators to bring him to our room, Joe takes out and puts on his gag disguise coke-bottle eyeglasses with attached protruding large buck teeth and goes up to Registration. I’m already cringing because I’ve seen this before and know what’s coming. “Excuse me, is there a dentist in the house???” Joe asks the guy at Registration. I try to crawl under a chair somewhere, but there are none near me. At this point, when I see the guy behind the desk looking very uncomfortable and not quite knowing how to respond to Joe, I tell him, “Don’t mind him, he’s been on the plane too long. It's affected his brain.” and drag Joe off. Joe checks into our room and we go down to meet Olivia for breakfast. The dining room is an open atrium surrounded by a low fence, leading to a corridor. Joe finished his breakfast, bid us goodbye until later, stepped over the fence into the corridor, and proceeded to start rolling around on the carpeted floor on his back, curled up in a fetal position, as if he were having a seizure. Olivia was alarmed and about to get up. I told her, "Don't worry. He's ok. He does this all the time." People walking by in the corridor didn't know if they should do something for him. But, since they saw us both sitting there, finishing our breakfast, conversing casually, and totally disregarding him, they just stepped around Joe and continued down the corridor. Olivia and I went on with what we were doing, as if nothing unusual were going on. Ah, you gotta love him. Yes, it's painful when you're shy. I ought to know (see my post The Dangers of Shyness).

The rest of the dance was uneventful. Not that it wasn't fun. It was. And, when we became obsessive, as dancers tend to be -- dancing until all hours of the night -- Olivia had had enough of the WCS mania and retired for the evening. But at about 1:00am the hotel's alarm system went off and we were asked to exit the hotel. We waited outside for about 30 to 45 minutes imagining all sorts of horrible terroist attacks of one type or another. But after a while we were told that it was safe to return inside; that there had been some type of alarm system malfunction. So, we all returned.....and danced some more. It must have been about 3:00am when I finally retired for the evening. Olivia and Joe were already back in the room and sleeping. I got ready for bed and then konked out myself. It was a while later -- 4:00am to be exact -- when I heard knocking on our door. Olivia and Joe both mumbled something about someone being at the door but didn't move. I got up, barely able to walk because of the pain in my feet from excessive dancing (once again), and went to the door in my PJs. I asked who it was and heard an answer of "Service." When I opened the door, there stood this gigantic black man. He looked sort of military in a way; some sort of dark-type uniform. He said, "you called about a problem with the shower?" Huh?? Hotel plumbers showing up at 4:00am in the morning??? This was very bizzare. But, I thought, perhaps either Olivia or Joe had complained about the shower. I asked them if they had called anyone, but based on their almost incoherent mumbled "no," I wasn't sure if they were actually awake, and didn't feel real confidence with their answers. So, I let him come in and take a look at the shower, which worked perfectly. Then he said, "Sorry. I'll be evacuating the premises immediately!" Who talks like that? The military? He left. Very, very strange. I went back to bed. About 20 minutes later the telephone rings. Olivia answers. It's someone (presumably from the hotel) calling to apologize for waking us up at that hour. Olivia said, "You woke us up at this hour to apologize for waking us up before???? Gheez!!" She slammed the phone down. We never found out what that was all about, although we asked at the front desk the next day. The hotel personnel knew nothing about it. Twilight Zone] I also gave Olivia and Joe the business the next day for not coming to my aid. "What if he was a serial killer? You two kept sleeping and left me there to possibly be hauled away and disposed of." Didn't get much of a response from them, except perhaps for a "hee, hee" from Olivia.

During the dance weekend, I had asked others if they had had any problems at the airports, and whether they had been pulled out of line to have their belongings examined. I recounted my experience. No, no one had. They had sailed right through. Well, on my return, I got on the check-in line. As soon as I put my suitcase on the weighing machine, the agent yelled out "SECURITY!!!!" Here we go again. Then when I walked through the baggage conveyor check in, the woman there passed my carry on through and then asked me to wait (while still standing at the conveyor) while she unzipped the bag. I went to help, and she said, "Step back!!!" Then she found my nice new nail scissors (which I had forgotten to remove and had not been caught on the outbound flight). She spoke to her co-worker in Spanish (with heavy conspiratorial intonations of suspicion) and said, "she has a pair of scissors." Then she looked at my toiletry bag. She couldn't open it. I, of course, stayed back, since she had instructed me to do so (as if I were a wanted criminal). But, eventually (due to her incompetence in opening the bag) she had to ask for my help in opening it. As soon as I had helped, she said in a very loud voice, "Step Back!!" She proceeded to unzip all the little compartments in my bag and found my little travelling sewing kit, which included a miniscule pair of scissors (you couldn't possibly do any damage with it, let alone cut a thread), which I had totally forgotten about. Then she spoke to her co-worker in Spanish again -- the undertones of suspicion even heavier now -- saying, "She has a second pair of scissors!" I asked, "Can I have them mailed to me, I forgot they were there? I just bought them." "No!" she said, "Step back!" Now, I don't think that I look like a suspicious criminal, but apparently, I may be wrong. ??? All the other passengers continued to sail right on through with no problem whatsoever. Vikingro!!! (see Glossary).