The Marble Pedestal: Freak and geek

I have an iPod. And like any red-blooded Canadian male, I also have the uncontrollable urge to perform elaborate, dorky sidewalk dances when listening to upbeat music. Okay, maybe I should amend that to “any red-blooded Canadian male drama major.” Hey, don’t judge me. Taylor Swift is occasionally catchy. At any rate, this week marks a new step in my street-dancing status: the first time my dancing got me pulled over by the police.

Let me paint a portrait of my mystery pull-over. It’s 1:30 a.m. Right, that might have been the first problem right there. Sane people are not usually seen strutting the sidewalk and silently singing Swift at 1:30 a.m. Fine, less-than-silently. Look, I’d just gotten off work and needed to stay awake on my walk home, or I would sleepwalk into the path of an oncoming Winnebago, and most of you would probably disapprove of that. Street dancing was basically just a survival mechanism.

Anyways, along comes Coppy McBadgerson, who I’m positive saw me grooving at a stoplight three blocks earlier, and likely went through a round in his head of “Was he — no, he wouldn’t ... sing? Really? Really? Dancing? Huh,” before circling back around and checking to make sure I wasn’t a menace to society.

So he pulled up and asked me a couple questions, probably to ensure that I was indeed sober (check) and not a raving idiot (check) and, satisfied, he went on his way. It wasn’t particularly exciting; I didn’t even have to pull out my anti-cop tactics (I’ve learned how to cry on command). But the point is this: isn’t it great that we’ve reached a point in the Edmonton Police Force where they’re so awesome at their jobs that they can take the time to pull over musical miscreants and dancin’ fools?

A world where dancing has reached this level of attention from the city is indeed a world I want to live in. You’ve been elevated to the Marble Pedestal, Edmonton cops. Congratulations. I’ll provide the soundtrack.