Do you remember that point your parents reached when they suddenly stopped being able to dance? I mean they could still do the steps — of the Jitterbug or the Lindy or whatever it was they did, but something had tipped — was it you? Was it just your embarrassment, or did something stop working? Suddenly, even when they were just tapping their feet, the hair stood up on the back of your neck. You were desperate for them to stop.

I’m asking because I’m pretty sure I’ve hit that point. I was trying to josh around in the car with my teenage son during that magnificent dance song, Let’s Groove by Earth, Wind and Fire, and I went into my trademark car seat boogie (a daily occurrence), and it felt all wrong. Just wrong. I pointed my finger — like who? John Travolta? What was that? — and I was doing some sort of Egyptian maneuver with my head that, let’s face it, I’ve never been able to do well, even at 19. Tonight in the Tahoe, in one regrettable funkectomy, it all fell away from me. Every sad little ember of dance floor mojo, gone. I embarrassed myself.

I guess I knew it had to happen. People just don’t go on and on, do they? At some point, your 14 year old looks perfectly at home on the dance floor and you look . . . retro. In a bad way. You look like old people look when they dance.

Close your mouth, stop making that face, for God’s sake don’t run your hand through your hair one more time or I’m going to die. I thought it was just the kids who felt that way when they saw you out there, ugh, shaking it. But, no, apparently you feel that way, too, while you’re actually dancing. You’re excruciatingly aware of how you’re both rhythm-bustingly stiff and inappropriately jiggly. What you are is circling the drain.

Don’t do that thing with your wrist, and no, there is no bumping. DO NOT DO THE BUMP. I’ve always been a three-drink dancer. My self-consciousness is like someone I am forced to be friends with because our parents are best friends. She shows up unexpectedly in places and once she spots me, she’s with me all night, saying annoying things like, “Remember that time you wore your shirt inside out for a whole day in 11th grade?” She is a buzzkill. I hate her.

Obviously, this is an unacceptable situation. I am way too young to dance like an old lady. Just now, I’ve decided that I have a theory about all this and also, that I’m right. The theory goes that I’m just a major, major empath like Miri on the old Star Trek. That’s right, I’m a Trekkie and still surprised that my sex appeal has limits. Anyway, I think I must be so empathetic to my teenager that I’m actually feeling his feelings, his adolescent self-consciousness. In reality, I dance as well as I ever have — better, even — but I’m just so tuned in to my child that it’s screwing with my head. It’s a phase and it will end as soon as he’s out of his phase — the one where they can’t wear coats even in snowstorms and one must never speak to them in front of other people.

Logically then, in keeping with the theory, my son will one day dress for the prevailing weather, and then it will all come flooding back to me. My mojo, my mighty mighty, my groove thang. My “Miss Jackson if you’re nasty.” Da funk.

I just have to wait it out. And maybe . . . practice. Yeah, and try to find out what the kids are doing on the dance floor these days, learn some new tricks. I could do a little chaparoning at the school dances; they always like hip parents at those things. They need me. After all, what are the odds that any of those kids has been taught how to bump properly?

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