When yuppies collide

Last Saturday we went to a reggae dance party. At 10:30 am. In Columbia Heights

I hadn't heard of it before, but apparently BloomBars does it every weekend. Sasha's mom suggested we go, and it sounded like fun, so we bundled up our progeny and headed out.

Oh, but before I get too far, let me just ask if you've heard the word yuppie in the last, well, ever? Since the 80s, I mean?

I must say that I hadn't heard or thought about the term yuppie in years, and to my knowledge I'd certainly never been called one before.

But recently I learned that when Nick and I moved into our neighborhood, one of our neighbors, never having met us, denounced us on the neighborhood listserv for being yuppies and ruining the character of the neighborhood.

Now, one could validly complain about Nick leaving his underwear in the shrubbery, but that hardly qualifies as ruining the neighborhood.

Anyway, I was fascinated to learn that we were yuppies. Us? Yuppies? I wasn't insulted, more surprised. Aren't we  too old, for one thing?

But the derider is very much a "fight the power!" type. And Nick, though in the business of oppressing nobody, is by all accounts The Man. Now we yup around the neighborhood.

So we yupped ourselves over to the reggae dance party, with Sasha in a stroller, Jordan protestedly walking, and two babies being worn. It could have been fun except that Jordan was a complete and utter crab-faced pill, and neither he nor Sasha wanted to dance - the point! of the excursion! Have fun, goddammit!

Because say what you will, a 10:30 am reggae dance party is not MY idea of great fun.

It turns out to be very popular, and very crowded, and thus hot. We exited just before it ended, thus avoiding the tremendous crush. Determining the source of crabbiness to be low blood sugar, we  darted a couple doors down into a quiet coffee shop.

Ahem. Quiet, I should say, until our arrival.

My former single, probably hung-over on a Saturday morning self would have loathed us.

We crammed our two families into the only available four-chair spot, next to two men clearly on an early date. They were discussing Le Creuset.

We were only the beginning of the stampede. The place quickly filled with children. At one point Nick, who had just walked back to our table with a cup of milk, boomed something along the lines of, "I'm certain he's delighted to share his New York Times!"

A slightly flustered man, previously enjoying sitting alone with the paper, was now very much not alone, and in fact, was peering down at a child peering up from under his paper.

Sasha's mom looked at me and said, "When yuppies collide."

When we'd finished as much as was going to be consumed of raspberry muffin and other such yuppie victuals, we began the process of sweatering and coating our kids and ourselves.

We herded the older kids toward the door, and as I was passing a young woman in line at the cash register, she pointed to Sasha's dad, who was struggling into his coat while wearing his son.

She said, "I just realized that man in the corner has a baby with him! I thought he was just dancing by himself in the corner!"

But when it really comes down to it, aren't we all?