When nineties retro comes into vogue, the younger edge of 'Generation X' and the elder edge of 'The Nintendo Generation' will wax nostalgic about, among other things, the Macarena. And don't act like you don't know.

I remember it was spring and the mall I worked in was trying to break the Guinness world's record for longest line dance. Or perhaps merely claim the title before someone else thought of it. And thus, all day the food court and adjoining area had been filled with people in absurd neon cowboy outfits, two-stepping rythmically to Billy Ray Cyrus and Garth Brooks. I stood at the entrace of Sam Goody and handed out coupons for such abominable country music, watching the udulating crowd.

Most of the dancers were mall-walkers by early morning, and often had to sit down and rest, letting others take their places. An aspiring Daisy Duke aerobics instructor from the local country station led the crowd with enthusiastic encouragement and recurring rhetorical questions: "Isn't this fun??"

And we - myself and the high school house dj I worked with - had had nearly all we could take. We turned up dance music, latter day grunge, even decent (read: old) country to drown out the noise.. It did nothing save garnering us glares from the legions of suburban cowboys.

And then.. the beat changed.

A day before, we had hated the Macarena, hated explaining that the song was more or less public domain and that numerous bands had recorded it since its popularity spiraled and here was the version they played on KUBE 93 and here was the tejano version all the Spanish radio stations played.

But this was different. This was like a lukewarm shower and a stiff matress after a week on the Greyhound. In light of what we had withstood in the preceding hours, it was not only tolerable, but it made us gasp in shocked glee. And we started doing the Macarena. And in all the other stores we could see, young quasi-hip redneck kids were doing the Macarna. The disgusted and surly employees in the food court were doing the Macarena, in spite of their tiny accomodations. The mall stopped and the customers were doing it and the workers were doing it and Miss Cowgirl Aerobics Instructor with the cheesy voice looked utterly confused but ecstatic.

The song ended and the collective silent moan was palpable. Soon after, the radio station and mall illuminati packed up and headed back to their beige offices to ruminate on their successful day of marketing. And we laughed as we locked the gate, because we all did the Macarena.

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