I don’t have a body that you’d exactly say was “good to look at.” I’m hunchy, thick in the neck, and barrel chested. My wife says I'm a keg-on-legs.  And that ain’t sexy. With beach and pool season rapidly approaching, I decided to try and streamline the caboose that is my torso and work out.

 “We should take a jazzercise class!” my wife suggested. I didn’t even have time to veto. Sarah was already keen to the idea of the two of us spending a date night together sweating-to-the-oldies. “Oh, yeah! Let’s take Zumba Jazzercise.”

And before I knew it, I was standing in front of a wall of mirrors in a dance studio at the Southdale YMCA ready to work out to the spicy Latin rhythms of Zumba. I knew I was in trouble when the instructor dimmed the lights in the studio to set the mood. Then she wiggled on a serious microphone head set and shouted into the P.A. system.

“All right!” She yelled at us like a cheerleader. The Zumba instructor had severely dyed hair and wore dance shoes that matched her skin tight pants. When she started clapping her hands to the lively beat, I wanted to rip out her larynx. “All Right! Who’s with me? Are we ready to go? Let’s go!”

She burst into a cardio dance routine that made every inch of my body hurt. Hell, my teeth were exhausted from grinding together as I tried to keep up and follow the routine. I was dancing like a man who was under going an exorcism. Then half way through the first song, the instructor looked over at me and my wife and said over the P.A. system, “Looks like we got some new Zumba members! Welcome! I know us Minnesotans aren’t used to moving our hips like this. But let’s try!” Everyone in the class looked over at us. My lovely wife gave a cute wave. I tried desperately to just find something – anything- that resembled a rhythm. The music changed to a fast twitching Cha-Cha. The music got faster and faster and the instructor spastically shook her hips side to side. “Side to side now!   Side to side now!”

Half way through the class, I realized that I was just too damn white to dance. The last time I actually danced was when I drank half a case of Schlitz with my friend Peter and we cranked up an old Built To Spill album (how’s that for whiteness?). I wasn’t physically meant to Salsa, Maringa, Cha-Cha, or do anything that remotely involved coordination. At the end of the class, I was such a physical wreck that I thought one of my testicles actual fell off. The instructor shimmied over to us and introduced herself. We shook hands and told her our names.

“And let’s give a big hand to our two newest members of Zumba…Todd and Sarah!”  The instructor belted over the P.A. All the women clapped. Everyone filed out feeling zesty.

“You two did great!” The instructor cheered once more.

We never went back.