Everyone makes mistakes, and I am no exception. I have made mistakes in love, I have made mistakes with alcohol, I have made poor investment decisions involving an alpaca farm. But the things that weigh the heaviest on my conscience are the important events in life that I have utterly ruined because a dance song told me to do something, and I did it.

Let me tell you of the memories I tarnished through instructional song:

Cha Cha Slide: When I was in college, studying for a criminology degree that I had hoped would be the first step to becoming a Batman, my roommate was a guy named Rob. Rob was a good guy, a straight-shooter who worked hard and was the first in his family to go to college. Flash-forward to his graduation ceremony, when I thought it would be a good idea to do what DJ Casper told us in “Cha Cha Slide” as we received our degrees.

As I slid to the left on stage, then slid to the right, and prepared to criss-cross, I slid right into Rob and slid him right off the elevated platform. It took him five years of therapy to walk again.

Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae): Everything was going relatively fine, until it got to the point where the song repeatedly tells you to “do the stanky leg.” I did what I assumed was the stanky leg, and not what the police later referred to as “a physical demonstration of hate speech.” I was just trying to get into the spirit of quinceanera!

Do The Bartman: I just want to say this: the song says “Do the Bartman.” I did The Bartman. It’s not my fault that the funeral procession for the mayor was watching me move my body like I had the notion, front to back in a rock-like motion as I listened to The Simpsons Sing the Blues on a boombox in my backyard.

Boot Scootin’ Boogy: When I wandered into a Ramada Inn Banquet Hall, lured by the scent of all-beef pigs in a blanket, I did what any sensible person would do. I went heel, toe, docie do, and then shouted “come on baby, let’s go boot scootin’” at the top of my lungs. Sorry to ruin your birthday, Tad, but if you don’t want people having a good time, don’t crank Brooks & Dunn.

The Hokey Pokey: I’ll spare you the bulk of the details on this one, but let’s just say when you’ve just purchased a winning lottery ticket and stuffed it in your sock for safe-keeping, then your sister insists that you have to go to your dumb nephew’s first communion, even though the ticket is practically burning a hole in your ankle while Father Patrick takes his goddamn time with the Holy Eucharist, and then you’re told there’s a celebratory breakfast and you have to do it on account of what you did at your nephew’s baptism, and then the kids do The Hokey Pokey and you get dragged into, and it actually was kind of fun to stick your foot in and shake it all about, until you shake it too hard and then ticket gets loose, and then it sticks to the bottom of a passing waiter’s shoe and you chase after him, knocking children everywhere in your panic, and you tackle the waiter, but it turns out he played some football in college and he takes you down a peg, and then you wind up in jail and no one believes that you ever won the lottery at all, it sucks!