We were in one of the ship’s theatres waiting for a presentation to begin. I heard a woman behind us talking about dancing on the ship.

adoring fan: “There were a few really good dancers out there last night. They danced beautifully.”

I thought “That might have been us.” I’m not trying to be smug but we had gotten a number of compliments the night before. 

adoring fan: “I bet they just learned for the cruise. One looked really professional. You could see him counting before he started.”

I thought “Yep. That was us.” Although, that wasn’t professionalism. I’ve no natural rhythm. I need to count to keep time with the music. 

adoring fan: “It looked lovely but there’s no way that anyone’s gonna go on the dance floor with them there. I better watch what I say. They might be here.”

I took that as my cue and turned around: “That could have been us,” I said.

Everyone laughed and said nice things.

I added “We didn’t take lessons for the cruise. We started taking dance 10 years ago for our son’s wedding.”

I didn’t get a chance to tell the adoring fan that the only reason that Pam and I got to be any good was to go on the dance floor despite there being far better dancers there.

I was going to call this post “caught counting” or something like that. Pam suggested “Counting Out Time” and I preferred it. For all the Genesis fans.