May I have this dance?

If it rains while you are at Williamsburg -- and statistically, the chances of this happening are roughly the same as those of dying -- I would recommend getting stuck in the bakery, where they have gingerbread cakes and other early colonial treats for sale. While it rains, you and your spouse can amuse yourselves and other patrons by conducting a pleasant argument on whether or not you should share one of these gingerbread cakes, or whether you should each get your own. This will progress, as spousal disagreements tend to do, into a heated discussion of how he always eats your portion of the food before you can get to it, or how she always takes two bites of something and then throws it away without offering you any. This will continue until the rainstorm is over, or the costumed shopkeeper hits you both in the head with a gingerbread cake.

But this is much more enjoyable than getting stuck during a blinding rainstorm at the museum hospital for the insane, which is what we did. After 29 viewings of the exhibits on colonial methods and tools for restraining those who have lost touch with reality, and listening to innumerable reenactments of former patients screaming and babbling, you look out the window and it is still pouring, and you find yourself thinking that if someone were to put you in one of those restraining chairs and strap you in, you actually might feel quite comfortable.

Fortunately, the fun at Williamsburg doesn't end with rain, nor does it end at 5:00, although most buildings close and the costumed interpreters stop being George Washington or Thomas Jefferson and become Bob Green or Joshua Pappansquat again. But for tourists, the entertainment options continue in the evenings. There are all those taverns we mentioned last week, for instance. And stumbling over cobblestones is much more fun in the dark than during the day.

There are also dancing exhibitions one can attend to learn how colonists entertained themselves. Dancing -- which was invented several thousand years ago, on a Monday or perhaps a Tuesday, historians are not really sure which -- fulfilled several purposes in colonial times, including the ever-present need for entertainment, and also for indicating that you needed to use whatever primitive facilities may have been available (performed with the legs closely entwined about each other). It was also, according to the woman who led the dances we watched, a way to show off who you were to other people. This could be a little tricky. With the room lit only by candles, people could easily mistake you for a large, upright sheep in heat, which is probably not the impression you wished to make.

According to our interpreter, the first dance of an evening was often the minuet, danced by one couple at a time in order to increase the humiliation of those who did not know what they were doing. From what I could tell, the minuet got its inspiration from a mating dance between giant ostriches, performed in slow motion. There is a great deal of fluttering, waving of the arms up and down, and strutting back and forth, and the dancers spend most of their time apart, probably because in the dark it is hard to see where the other person is. They might be dancing with a potted plant and not realize it until the 376th flutter.

Or possibly this is because they are not really sure they want to get together. Watching them come together and then instantly move apart again makes you think: they like each other -- now they don't -- now they do -- now they don't -- and that is how the dance progresses. No one knows how the dance ends, because by then everyone else has either fallen asleep or indulged too freely in the host's beverages and has no idea of whether the ostriches decided that they like each other or not.

All of us at this dance exhibition were invited to participate in the other dances following the minuet, and even if we declined, we had to learn how to bow or curtsy. You might think this is outmoded, but it is actually a very useful skill. It will definitely add some elegance and grace to our next discussion of gingerbread cake.