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The Slice: Knowing when to stage an intervention
So I’m in a South Hill grocery when I see this preschool girl movin’ and groovin’ to the music coming from the speakers in the store’s ceiling.
Normally, this would not be alarming. I don’t happen to regard dancing as sinful. But the song in question was a disco hit from 1975.
Yes, that’s right. Disco.
The big question: Should I intervene?
Now, of course, I never contemplated approaching the child. I am not insane.
But perhaps I could speak to a parent or guardian. I looked around. The most likely candidate was a woman on her phone. She did not look amenable to having a strange man sidle up to her, clear his throat, and quietly say, “Excuse me, but your daughter is getting into ‘The Hustle’ … thought you should know.”
Besides, you know how parents can be. They aren’t always open to the suggestion that they could be more alert when watching their children.
The song kept playing. The little girl kept dancing.
Now don’t misunderstand. I’m too old to play the music snobbery game with a great deal of enthusiasm. Whatever floats your boat, as they say.
But this wasn’t a simple matter of taste. This was an impressionable young mind being corrupted right before my eyes.
Was I supposed to stand by and just do nothing?
Then it occurred to me. Maybe this little girl had seen “The Martian.”
That set-in-the-near-future 2015 movie features a character, a woman in command of a mission to Mars, who loves disco and takes some grief about it from another astronaut.
But here’s the thing. That character, Melissa Lewis, is exemplary in every way. She’s brave, smart, decisive and cool under pressure.
I can’t think of many better role models for a little girl – or anybody, for that matter.
So I kept quiet and moved on down the aisle.
If that little girl wanted to enjoy the same music as Commander Lewis, she’d get no argument from me.
Do The Hustle!
Correction: Dalai Lama was spelled incorrectly in Tuesday’s Slice.
Today’s Slice question: Watching the Olympics on TV tends to make you self-conscious about your own (fill in the blank with the name of a body part)?
Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Anna Dickinson, Hanny Hokanson, Devin Brown and Neal Bedsted were among those who knew that “Red River” was the last movie at the small town Texas theater in 1971’s “The Last Picture Show.”