19 Stages of Watching a Dance Competition

Stages of Watching a Dance Competition

1. You get up early. Like... let’s see the sunrise together early. Except that you can’t enjoy the sunrise because...

2.  You spend twenty minutes in a panic because you  can’t find the bottom to the first costume of the day only to realize that the last time she wore it, she had a quick change and it got shoved into the bottom of the Dream Duffel.

3. You spend the next twenty minutes trying wash off the superglue-esque paste that a combination of hair gel, hairspray, and eyelash glue have created on your fingers.

4. Then you have to go back to the car because you didn’t put the spare tights in the Dream Duffel and the first pair your child put on ripped.

5. You drape your dancer in an oversized sweatshirt so that she can eat some hotel waffles for breakfast without getting syrup on her costume.

6. You run out the door and race to the venue, only to find that there’s road construction/a parade/a road race blocking all known routes to the place.

7. After finding a parking spot far enough away to count as your cardio for the day, you enter the building to be greeted with the news that they’re running an hour ahead--even though the competition started 30 minutes ago.

8.  You hand off your dancer to the teachers, only after asking a minimum of 17 times if she’s stretched.  And then you go to find a seat...

9. And discover that some parents must have camped out overnight like it was a Best Buy Black Friday sale because there’s nowhere to sit.

10.  You insist that you’re going to watch all of the numbers leading up to your studio’s performance and seven minutes later find yourself finally beating level 141 of Candy Crush.

11. You start making notes in your program to add to Dance Competition Hub when you get home.

12. At around hour 7, you begin to question your involvement in this and begin pondering the vacations you could be taking with the money you spend on dance competitions.

13. Then awards happen and your child scores a platinum on her solo and you start mentally packing for the next competition.

14. You promise to stay and watch all of the studio’s numbers and then your Starbucks app sends a notification of half price drinks.

15. You sneak back into the auditorium with your coffee, conveniently ignoring the “no food or drink allowed” sign, only to find that the seat in front of yours has been taken up by three dancers who insist on sitting on each other’s laps and giggling loudly while taking group selfies on their phones.

16. You begin plotting the murder of the parent who is too cheap to buy her own program and keeps texting you every 10 minutes to ask “what number are they on?”

17.  You try (and fail) to hide rolling your eyes at the parent who insists her precious little snowflake did not win because “the judges hate her.” (While mentally noting that she placed second.)

18. As 10 pm awards approach and you've had nothing but coffee and a half a stale pretzel, you begin to wonder how long it took for the Donner party to turn on each other.

19.  You return to your hotel room and set your alarm so that you can repeat steps 1-17 tomorrow.




Follow me on Twitter. Pretty Please. We'll have fun, I promise.