I am writing this from my bed after getting back from some emergency treatment from a chiropractor. I won’t mention his name as I don’t want to further prolong my embarrassment at what I did.
Yes, once again I have not been acting my age. But hey, though I am still in some pain, I have no regrets.
Let me explain. I had never heard of the word “twerking” until I read about the exploits of Miley Cyrus’s raunchy performance at the recent MTV Music Video Awards, when she performed a number and started to twerk.
What? I asked myself before I looked up the word and its explanation.
Apparently it involves squatting and pushing and shaking your buttocks around and generally gyrating in a highly sexual manner while dancing, which gave Miley such a bad name, even among some fans.
So there I was at Billy the Bum’s the other night when a couple of DJs started playing what I can only describe as “modern” music.
Now being in my sixties and bit of a ballie, I have partied and danced and followed every craze since I was out of my primary school short pants.
Yes, I have done the twist with Chubby Checker, rocked and rolled with Elvis, slow danced with Cliff, done the cha cha when it was the craze.
I have waltzed (very badly) at several of my weddings, and fox-trotted and done the samba, without causing any collisions or injuries among fellow dancers.
But it has not all been easy in my dancing career. Somehow I could never learn the moves of Zorba’s Dance.
Though I saw the movie several times and have been dragged to my feet at hundreds of parties down the years and forced to put my arms around strangers and then kick in different directions, I never got it right.
It’s the same with those movements when the Village People’s YMCA is played.
Despite extra lessons I have never worked out at which point my hands are supposed to be placed on top of my head and how to make alphabet signs as that famous but awful song drones on.
However, when I saw some pictures of Miley Cyrus and read the word “twerking”, I thought … “I can do this!”
So there I was at Billy’s, sans partner, who was too embarrassed to accompany me on to the makeshift dance floor.
I waited for an appropriate raunchy song with a thudding beat and there I was twerking away. The people around me suddenly stopped dancing and watched. I was going crazy.
Then it happened. As I lent forward, shaking my booty and thrusting my hips and almost touching my crotch like Miley and leaning forward in an awkward position, I felt it.
Yes, something snapped at about the L4 lumbar region and I froze.
Well, I froze because I could not move. But the crowds chanted and clapped. They thought this was part of my routine. Hell, no!
Stuck in a timewarp and unable to move, I just fell backwards and lay on my back like a deceased cockroach. Now all I could think of was those amazing breakdancing routines that were all the rage all those many decades ago.
So I somehow got enough leverage and started squirming around the floor in a circle and they cheered even more.
It was then my friends realised I was not breakdancing and saw the look of panic on my face.
They rushed towards me with six tequilas (apparently it cures anything), threw them down my throat and then carried me back to my chair.
It was no use. I was in agony so off they carted me to the chiropractor for a couple of skilled twists and turns. I slowly returned to my normal state and with a couple of pain-killers I limped home to bed.
So, dear readers, I am devastated. It seems my twerking days are over before they even began. Perhaps I am not as young as I think I am.
It’s mixing with my son’s and daughter’s friends that is to blame. I always think I am hip and cool.
The friends do, but my kids don’t.
But after my night on the tiles (literally) I returned home and, to seek solace, burnt all my daughter’s Hannah Montana DVDs and have since banned anyone in the house from even whispering Miley Cyrus’s name.
Then I got out my Beatles CDs, sat in my Lazyboy and didn’t move a muscle as I dozed off to Yesterday and The Long and Winding Road.
Thankfully, twerking to those famous songs is impossible.