I Like the Way You Hold Your Sign

Dear Mr. Dancing Sign Holder on College and Harmony:

Thank you for bringing a touch of happiness to my day with your phenomenal dancing. Unlike the damn sign holding fools with spastic, convulsion-like moves in front of Ultimate Electronics (who I fear would bite me if I got out of my car), you actually know how to dance although you are not very mindful of your sign. Upside down, sideways, backwards, above your head, below your feet. I have been watching you for over a year, and I don't know if you are peddling plumbing, painting, electronics, or furniture.  Really doesn't matter to you or your audience, who sit in their cars for many minutes at the busiest intersection in town that happens to be benefiting from impeccable planning on the part of city, county, and transportation officials. Smart move to tear up both the busiest street and second busiest street in the city, right at point where they intersect. This way, there are now double the amount of the construction workers to stand around and give instructions to the one man who is actually working -- the non-sunscreen wearing worker with the yellow hard hat, orange vest and severe limp.

Mr. Sign Holding Dancer, you are far more entertaining to watch than a few hot, taut construction workers. Once you get past the muscles, nice tan, and occasional gesture of extraordinary strength, what's there to watch? You, on the other hand, give a show with your nice tan, athletic legs, mysterious eyes and boyish smile that illuminates every time you do a four step moonwalk or a fancy knee lift-ankle turn that is reminiscent of Michael Jackson.  When I first saw you last April, I said in a conversation with myself: "It is like he is channeling Michael Jackson. No. That makes no sense since you can't channel living people." Then, two months later, MJ was dead. At that moment, I think your dancing got better, and you added the black hat, bunched up socks and loafers to your attire. However, the hat really interferes with your sign holding. You should consider ditching the sign. Your loyal fans won't tell your employer.

Or, should I say, loyal fan. I might be the only one in town who notices you. Or, maybe I am the only one you notice, noticing you. I am the frazzled mom (perhaps a cougar of the librarian variety) in the red mini-van, who ignores her four children and listens to Prince at a volume that makes her children scream in agony, forcing me to turn it up even louder to drown them out. I can tell by the way your moves don't match my tunes that you don't have any Prince on your play-list that only you can hear. Sometimes you smile and wave at me. I smile and wave back. Damn. Am I really becoming the "bored, lonely, horny-for-college-boys housewife" that my husband excuses me of being every day?  No. I don't think so. Well, maybe. But, not in this case.

You, my favorite sign holding dancer, bring a little art to my daily life. You remind that you don't have to be on a stage or a contrived reality show to be a dancer. You are dancer in every sense of the word, even if your paycheck comes from sign holding, not dancing. Your art on the corner of College and Harmony, right in front of the McDonald's, inspires me. You are fearless, artistic and confident. Thank you for adding a little joy to my day and giving me a jolt of much needed motivation.

Best Wishes,

Garbageman's Daughter