The Group: Bellingham (Mass.) Memorial Middle PTO

The Setting: The school cafeteria, at a PTO-sponsored Friday night mixer for 7th and 8th graders.

The Idea: Keep the kids dancing and entertained from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Chairwoman Lena Wicks and the rest of the dance committee would arrange for pizza and refreshments, plus book a professional DJ to pump up the jam.

What Went Wrong: At 7 p.m., Wicks discovers that the DJ is at another jam—in traffic some 20 miles away. With no music for the throngs of teens and tweens, it’s panic for the parent chaperones.

What Happened Next: The boys turned their hats into footballs, and Assistant Principal George Benzie attempted to get down with a small CD player. “I tried to use some of my own music,” Benzie says, but the kids didn’t know the bands. “So much for thinking I was hip to the new music.”

The Outcome: The DJ found his way to the cafeteria dance floor at 8:15 but never found the right mix. Even worse, he wouldn’t leave when the dance ended. “At 9:35, he decides to play good music!” Wicks says. “We couldn’t get him there, and in the end, we couldn’t get him to go home!”

Notable Quote: “The highlight of my night,” Wicks remembers, “was hunting down the janitor to see if he had an extra mop…so we could get a limbo contest going.”

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