The Dance Recital

The following is the speech I wrote for the Humorous Speaking Contest for Toastmasters. I placed first for the Division award but had to back out of competing at the Area level due to a travel conflict.

This speech is intended to be performed so it is not a formal writing.

My wife, who usually took our 10 year old daughter to her dance recitals, had been asked to speak at a conference that coincided with a recital, so I was tasked with taking our daughter instead. While this might stress out some fathers, it so happened that I was an experience dancer dad. My work schedule was very flexible so I had become primarily responsible for taking our daughter to her dance classes. I had spent hours at the dance studio and I’d seen it all. From temper tantrums, to crying and yelling and throwing things… and that was just the moms. I wasn’t worried in the least.

My first task was to take her to get her makeup for the recital. “Black eyeliner, red lipstick.” That seemed straightforward, but when we got to the makeup counter we found out there isn’t just one black eyeliner. There’s regular black, black out, onyx black, darkest black, ferocious black and blackest black, just to name a few. I must not be the most color aware person as all the different shades of black looked pretty similar to me. There were also water proof versions of everything which I ruled out instantly as we were certainly not going swimming. So we eventually narrowed it down to darkest black and blackest black, which seems like an absurd differentiation. I don’t know how you get to darkest without also being the blackest but far be it from me to question a multi-billion dollar industry. After much back and forth we finally settled on blackest black as we figured that way no one could complain it wasn’t black enough. The lipstick was a bit easier as the instructions had included a specific shade number.

However, it wasn’t until the day of the recital that I realized neither my daughter nor I had ever actually applied either eyeliner or lipstick. These days you could probably find an instruction video on-line, but this was pre-YouTube days. We decided to tackle the eyeliner first. For those that don’t know, an eyeliner pencil is essentially a sharpened stick which you need to get really close to the eye. The entire concept seems barbaric and on my first attempt I couldn’t bring myself to actually get right up next to her eye. This left her with a ring around her eye. Knowing this wasn’t quite correct I tried to fix it by coloring from the edge of the ring closer in towards her eye. Although in theory this worked, the end result was far more goth than I had intended.

The lipstick proved to be almost as challenging as the eyeliner, although less dangerous. To me, lipstick seems like a sticky crayon and your lips have a natural line on them that separates them from the rest of your face, so I figured if I just colored in between the lines I would be good to go. What I didn’t account for was that there is no natural stopping point inside your mouth and I spent a good while in front of the mirror making various lip poses trying to get a sense of how far in I should color.

“Dad!”

None of this was sitting well with my daughter who was becoming more and more panicked with each facial gesture. After deciding on a general plan I proceeded to put on the lipstick much like you would color in a coloring book, with rapid back-and-forth type motion. Again, although in theory this worked it left her with a very thick layer of lipstick on her lips.

Still, with the makeup done we rushed off to the dance recital. I got her checked in and took my seat in the audience.

The recital started normally but it didn’t take long before the hot overhead lights, heavy costumes and general physical activity started to take their toll. Like most of the dancers, my daughter started to sweat … heavily. This is apparently what waterproof eyeliner is for. Without it the sweat mixed with the thick ring I had applied and proceeded to run down her cheeks, giving her an Alice Cooper look. Meanwhile, the lipstick I had applied in her mouth had been rubbing against her teeth turning them a frightening shade of red and causing her smile to take on a menacing grimace. This added new meaning to the dance as it appeared my daughter was melting into a nightmarish black swan, threatening to eat the other dancers.

Stuck in the audience I could only watch with mounting horror as the thick layer of lipstick started to work itself outside her lips and smear around her face. My first thought was “my wife is going to kill me.”

Thankfully some of the other moms took pity on her and tried to clean her up between routines. When my wife returned and saw the recital photos she decided that she would never miss another dance recital again. My daughter recovered but has learned that dad is not who you go to for makeup advice. Still, whenever my kids ask me if they should wear the blue outfit or the black one, I like to respond with “now is that the darkest black one or the blackest black one?”

Thank you.