Waste

This question came up recently.  Have we wasted our lives on Tango?

Let's see, just in dollar terms.  We started dancing 2004.  We didn't go to milongas right away, and we went to more classes and workshops than milongas for the first year, but in ballpark terms for the 12 years (give or take) that we have been dancing, we have spent perhaps the following:

1 year of weekly classes $10 x 2 x 52 weeks = $1,040.00

3 milongas a week 3 x $10 x 2 x 52 weeks x 12 years = $37,440.00

Workshops, festivals, special events etc: $4,000.00 (approximate)

10 trips to Buenos Aires (all expenses including airfare) averaging $7,500.00 per trip = $75,000.00

Clothes, CDs, shoes, Instructional DVDs or videos = $5,000.00

plus 10% transportation, meals, first aid from getting kicked in the shins etc: A GAZILLION BILLION DOLLARS (or approximately $134,728.00)

That's a nice downpayment on an income producing condo!  Factor in the lost opportunity costs of spending time kissing ass or networking for a better job, getting a profitable side gig for even more income (well, you can always use Tango as side gig, but we didn't), doing paid freelancing work instead of writing unfiltered unpopular crap on this blog and we are out like, A GAZILLION BILLION DOLLARS and must work until we are 85 years old before we can retire.

Oh crap.

Not to mention instead of spending quality time with family and friends outside of Tango "building strong interpersonal relationships", we are spending time with you guys.  We don't even know your full names or what you do - although we may know what your favourite orchestra is and that you are also annoyed when the organizer makes speeches that are cutting in on your dance time.

All this for a chance to hug the same (or different) strangers every week?  As my Mom and Dad would exclaim: "Ridiculous!" and "Sunken Costs!"*

*This is also the term they use to refer to Irene, as in "After all the $$$ I've spent on your education I think it would be more worth it to give birth to a piece of BBQ pork than to give birth to you!  At least I can eat the BBQ pork."  Ha ha, nice try folks I know that deep deep deep down you might like me just a little.

Mom and Dad are too polite to say anything to the Tango crazy daughter and son-in-law but if they dared they may say something like this:

"Look at your sister and brother.  They've been working hard all this time and not only do they have important jobs, big houses and fancy cars, they have babies!  Aunt Edna's son is now the Vice-President of ____________ (Big Powerful Association).  And what's more, our neighbour Doug and Tammy's kid is like, the Archbishop of Canterbury!  What have you done these past twelve years?  All you have to show for all that Tango is a bunch of videos of you dancing on Youtube that people have to wash their eyes out after watching and a closet full of worn out Tango shoes!"

Maybe it's time to contemplate a little on the disastrous wastage that is the Tango life of Irene and Man Yung.....

....OK, finished contemplating!  No worries.  So long we can still put food on the table and have a roof over our heads (and tango shoes on our feet), what are we going to do with the fancy cars, big houses, and babies?  Important job = more stress, more wrinkles and gray hair and maybe even heart attack, don't need more of that and would rather keep my health, thanks.

However, being the Archbishop of Canterbury is tempting, I must say.

 If we didn't waste all that time dancing Tango, we could possibly aspire to be 

The Archbishop of Canterbury.  Yum.

And why not do something every week that means something to us, that gives us pleasure, that makes us feel alive?  Why not light up at the sight of all you fellow Tango time and money-wasters, week after week? You are kind of even more like family than our real family now, and we probably love you a great deal more.

Tango:  A dance with you is worth A GAZILLION BILLION TRILLION DOLLARS AND it's all love, no regrets.  Except that Archbishopy thing.