Who let the merkin out?

Last weekend, Booby and I went to see his goddaughter in a dance recital, in which she, her cousin, and many other tiny little girls were dressed up as puppy dogs, complete with sequined "ears" attached to a headband. They danced (mostly hopped around wildly) to a medley of "How Much is That Doggie in the Window/Who Let the Dogs Out?" One little girl's headband/ears were hanging on by a prayer through all the bopping and thrashing, and she didn't care a whit. My niece, on the other hand, was visibly perturbed and I could see her restraining herself from righting the headpiece. She's a little Virgo girl, and a proper little madam. It was stinkin' adorable.

Of course, attending such a performance means sitting through all the other performances, which are mostly teenaged girls dressed in ridiculous (and often quite unforgiving) costumes, gallumphing around the stage under hot lights to themes of either "The '40s" (Capone, Hot Jazz) or "Hip-Hop" (Hit The Floor, The Timberlin [sic] Dance).

It wasn't my favorite way to spend a Friday night, but it wasn't too bad, overall. Booby is, oddly enough, a big fan of this sort of thing. He was teased mercilessly by his friends for liking Chicago (I am no fan of musicals and even I liked Chicago, though I did feel a little manipulated into liking it). As we walked to our car after the recital was over, he talked about the show, and then broke out with "God, I am so gay." (You see what teasing at the hands of heterosexual men does? As if we all shouldn't be a little gayer!) We joked about his unusual enjoyment of musicals for a few moments (he's about as un-metrosexual as a man can be in every other regard), and then he delivered the piece de resistance: "I'll be your merkin, honey." Awww, that's the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me. Except I think you mean that I'm your beard.