Square dancing with The Damned

I thought my bad week had taken a turn for the worse.
Days after having my wallet snatched from a locked locker at the DUBUQUE COMMUNITY Y, my editors assigned me to cover a square-dancing festival.
Fearful I would have thumping HOEDOWN MUSIC stuck in my head the remainder of the day, I frantically loaded my albums by English punk pioneers THE DAMNED onto my iPod.
In reality, listening to The Damned provided a helpful tether between me and the familiar world. My week hadn't taken a turn for the worse, it had taken a turn for the surreal.
Here's why:
Covering the SQUARE-DANCE FESTIVAL was like glimpsing a world existing just beyond our consciousness.
The square dancers inhabit a subculture where the folksy caller is king, where a "round dance cuer" is a treasured member of the team and where dancers can somehow make sense of an intricately choreographed series of movements that makes Rubik's Cube seem like a cat toy.
I was astounded by this heretofore undiscovered world, with its strange vernacular and its abstruse rituals.
Like I said: Listening to The Damned later brought a wave a relief, like regaining my "land legs" after a particularly disorienting voyage through an unknown sea.