I could have laughed all night...

This is a story about my stress free friend - I say stress free - she isnt that perfect but she definitley comes close. Seriously you will always laugh in her presence - she's quiet addictive.

So me and said friend decided to meet up this Halloween and head to the South Bank for some old school arcade fun. The last time we had headed to Namco on the SB was back in secondary school (woe im old)
After commenting about the serious amount of easter european kids hanging out like we used to, and how everything looked smaller (or maybe we got bigger) we found what I was looking for.

DANCE MAT!

I had chewed her ear off the whole way from home about how I wanted dance on the dance mat because 'Im amazing' and blah - when we got there, one solitude bald guy was occupying the game, and he looked like a pro.

In my giddy moment of childishness I ran over to spectate - what dance mat pro doesnt want to be watched? But it was when we got there that we realised we had been too hasty.

The poor man wasnt dancing...not really. The music was too fast and he couldnt step in time. So naturally as one does when someone you dont know is clearly in peril (and when you know that what you and your friend should really do is allow him to salvage some dignity by walking away) we laughed. OUT LOUD.

Well if your going to dance on the dance mat, make sure you've prepared yourself beforehand. No one goes on that thing in public unless they can hustle the flow baby.

When he collected his things (and the screen exclaimed that he had FAILED GAME OVER) we jumped on.

For some reason the damn thing wouldnt do 2player so we took it in turns. Now I was having a blast , but my friend complained that it was too slow. 'Ok so we can notch it up next game'

So we brought up the difficulty and when she took the podium she flitted between the song choices, It took the girl forever and she couldnt even make one. So naturally I picked the RANDOM button for her - the computer scrolled and chose a song, but it was my friend who accepted it. (Now I heard the pace of the song and considering the level we had chosen, it had crossed my mind that this would be a little racy...)

So she steps, slowly...the arrows are like 3 at a time and we're wondering if dance mat had lost its challenge.. this was all but confirmed when the arrows slowed down and then stopped all together. We thought it was over, and I was about to push her aside to take my turn when the flashing images of the screen and the dancing female avatar re-appeared and proclaimed:

DANCEMAT: 'OK...ARE YOU READY...?'

Friend: 'Am I what, what did it say?'
Me: 'i think its going to get faster'

Before she had time to prepare the beat had kicked in, and a series of arrows, back and front, left and right...diagonall, flooded the screen...needless to say she tried her best, but being the tall 5'10 girl that she is her long legs were flying in all directions - she looked ridiculous - her face was a pure picture of horror, there was sweat from every pore. She was panting...jogging, badly.

At this point I had almost keeled over in a fit of laughter, the whole arcade had turned to watch. I didnt care it was the best thing i had seen for a long time. I still managed to grab my phone camera and document her on the dance mat...


It started off so well. The blurryness is due to me laughing.