Dance Dance Exculplation

or How to Make the World a Better Place

So all day I've been searching news sites and racking my brain for a great blog topic for this week. Frustrated, I have thrown up my hands and said, "Why isn't anything going on in the world!?!?!!?!"

This is, of course, ludicrous.

I mean, when you think about it, there are a number of things that are actually happening in the world. Elections, Tornadoes, poor Heath Ledger, more Elections, and also Elections. But the problem with these things is that, while interesting/tragic, they aren't, you know, amusing. (Except for the things Ron Paul says)

But then the citizens of Milford, New Hampshire provided me with a glimpse of the future, a utopic society of dance dancing. This week, librarians offered their patrons a chance to dance dance away their library fines by challenging said librarians to a game of the ever popular Dance Dance Revolution. (For those who don't know, Dance Dance Revolution is some sort of giant video game that requires you to dance around on colored symbols while it ridicules you for your inability to play the game by flashing things like, "Boo!" and "Maybe try Guitar Hero instead!" It might also praise you if you're good at it, but I wouldn't know.)

And so, I ask you. Wouldn't the world truly be a better place if all we had to do was dance dance away our transgressions? Patrons merely had to score better than the librarian they had challenged which probably wasn't really that hard... I mean, think of the librarians you know!

I feel there are a number of situations where dance dancing to get off the hook could be applied.

Clearly, the first one that comes to my mind is that oh so rare occasion where you might not be so prepared for class and you happened to get called on. Come on, we've all been there. Maybe you watched a movie instead of reading for Con Law or valued the Super Bowl over the Contracts assignment or did pretty much anything else (scrubbing toilets, eating bugs) to put off the Civ Pro assignment, but you know it's happened at least once. But picture this: Professor Lawson raises his right arm and points to you but oh no! You haven't read and you begin to panic. But fortunately, if you are able to score just one grade higher than Lawson on Dance Dance Revolution, he will move on to the next person. He gets out the mat, the colored symbol things project onto the big screen and it's on! Except I can't even fathom the person who would be able to beat Bob. I bet he's a DDR genius.

Another time it could be useful, and a timely suggestion, given Valentines Day is next week, is in relationship troubles. Say, for example, you were to forget a birthday/anniversary or commit a minor transgression such as, say, telling your girlfriend that she really looked like she was stuffed into the skinny jeans she was so proud to get into. She would get mad and you would say, "okay, honey, let's dance dance this out." It would save you hurt feelings, harsh words, slammed doors, expensive guilt flowers. And then at the end of the song, whoever wins is the winner of the fight. And then you can mark it down on your tally board.

Other times Dance Dance Revolution would be a useful means of conflict resolution:
Late Payments on Utility Bills/Rent (benefit: if you win, you don't have to pay the bills)
Forgotten/Late Assignment at Work
Roommate Dispute (if you win, your roommate has to pay for your beer that he drank)
Traffic Accident
Adverse Possession Claims


There is, as I see it, a major flaw with this plan and it's that I'm really bad at dance dancing. I could just use this as a reason to be agreeable and not prone to conflict, but really, there's little to no chance of that happening, so to solve this problem, I would propose that Karaoke be an appropriate replacement for Dance Dance Revolution. We'll call this the Bowles Substitution in honor of Mr. Dane Bowles, the King of Karaoke (pictured above).

Consider, fellow law students and other readers who are familiar with what lawyers do, how this would revolutionize our profession! Though, you'd have to get a pretty big DDR mat for class-action suits.

It's going to change the rest of your life, folks. Better start practicing.