Peeping ’80s Night at Q’s

I’ve heard it said that if you lived through a trend the first time around, you should never, ever wear it again. Be that as it may, last Tuesday night I was cursing the day I’d ever decided to chuck those awesome hot pink leg warmers I used to wear to grade school. And, given the largely undisputed truth that the ’80s were essentially an unmitigated style wasteland, this is saying something. What might make me so desperate to rediscover such an objectively atrocious relic? Eighties night, of course.

The plan for the evening had been hatched some days before when a friend and ’80s-night vet noted that, as the following Wednesday was a holiday, this Tuesday in particular might be the ’80s night to end all ’80s nights. Sitting on my couch, dejected as to my lack of costumery, I picked up the remote and, lo, in a spooky episode of synchronicity, a quick flip found Flashdance and my enthusiasm quickly returned. I was the proverbial maniac, and I was ready to hit the floor.

And, several hours later, approaching the mob scene barring the door to Q’s, I discovered my little crew and I weren’t the only ones. Hundreds of side-ponytail-sporting peeps clogged the entrance, waiting patiently for their chance to do the S-A-F-E-T-Y dance. Although-painful though it is to admit-for the bulk of them, hitting ’80s night would not be the sentimental flashback-type experience that it would be for us; I was pretty sure they could know these tunes only from their parents, classic rock radio, or such timeless cinema as The Karate Kid and Less Than Zero, or worse, recently made ’80s-nostalgia flicks like The Wedding Singer.

And yet, who cares if this was their first time? The music was enough to make even us thirty-somethings feel shiny and new: Prince when Prince was The-Artist-Always-Known-As-Prince, Madonna 1.0-the rubber-bracelet-wearing, Get-into-the-Grooving incarnation, not the Kabbalah-preaching, yoga-bending, kiddie-book-penning version of today-the pre-Neverland Michael Jackson from way back when, when he was a moonwalking, glitter-gloved beacon of cool (I swear, there was a time), Bruce Springsteen, Billy Idol, all manner of depressed, Brit boy bands. : The dance floor was packed, and we were dancing like we’d never danced before.

What a feeling :