Salsa Dancing & Drug Busts

I have a group of girls I like to go out with about once a month. Sometimes we go to the Irish Pub, sometimes we go to the movies. This past weekend we went dancing. The place of choice? A salsa dancing club in the center of town.

The area this particular club sits in has a few different places to go for a good time - - a country bar, a lazer tag place, a dollar store. All kinds of good stuff mixed in with an office park and at least 5 different pawn & loan shops. Kind of dirty, kind of sleazy, cheap, and eclectic. Now to get to this club one must find their way through a maze of one-story office flats into an area with a poorly lit parking lot.

When I am meeting people I like to be on time - - and I am usually the first person to arrive anywhere. This weekend I had over 20 minutes to wait for my friends to show up which gave me quite a bit of time to observe the crowd entering the building. Alarms immediately began sounding in my head. When I worked at Target I received extensive training in identifying potential criminals (as well apprehending and detaining them when necessary), and many arriving had the look of drug dealers and pick-pockets.

My crew of ladies arrived and we all went in together. I was surprised by everything before my eyes... there was a couple in their 70s working their salsa moves on the dance floor, a group of 8 greasy-haired men hunkering around a corner table, 2 young pregnant women wearing stripper dresses with skirts so short you could see their lunch, a very tall man around 25 wearing a white zuit suit with gangsta hat (his honey wore a matching dress and hat), and then the 5 of us gals who have no idea what on Earth we are doing.

The free lessons went well, we all were asked to dance a few times, and around midnight the club started to get packed with a crowd of people that looked just scary... shifty eyes watching our every move, whispering and pointing, strange hand signals, and lingering handshakes with all-knowing glances. I decided it was time to go, and I was going to take my friends with me. A little chattering and I convinced them all we should go over to the country bar nearby and get a break from the overpowering salsa music. We left quickly and a few guys followed us out, but once they realized there were so many of us most of them returned to the club. The rest of the evening was uneventful and the weekend went by.

Monday, 7:55 AM - "And in other news, several known gang members were apprehended this weekend at a local salsa club." I stare at my radio while sitting at the red light. "After months of undercover investigations, officers successfully captured the leader of a local gang thought to be the mastermind for drug trafficking through the city. Eight upper-level members of the gang are awaiting charges from assault with a deadly weapon to drug-related activity."

Come to find out the night after we went dancing the bust went down in the very same club where we had been shaking our tail feathers. Small world... I think I'll stick to Monopoly nights and movies from now on.