(Look, it's about to be a whole entry not related to the war, terrorism, or political happenings of any kind! More exclamation points required!)

My gym has an Afro-Carribbean dance class Thursday mornings. I don't always make it -- because, frankly, sometimes I don't feel up to the stomping and the flailing and the what have you -- but today was one of the funniest classes I have ever attended. The teacher, whose name I unfortunately do not know, is this tiny spitfire woman with more energy than 40 average people combined and very melodious, accented English. (This is important later in the story.) I don't know where in Africa she's from, but I would guess it's somewhere French-speaking. "Anna" sounds like "AH-nah," that sort of thing. Anyway.

An important part of Afro-Caribbean dance is undoubtedly the boom-say. Due to the aformention accent, I don't know if this particular euphamism is actually "boom-sIE" or, in fact, if it's a euphamism at all or the actual word in the teacher's native language. The accent is on the first sylable -- BOOM-say. Also, the plural of boom-say is still boom-say: one boom-say, two boom-say, red boom-say, blue boom-say.

So the teacher rushes in late, straps on the microphone headset she needs to be heard over the positively deafening, boom-say-shaking music, and leads the class through an extremely strenuous warm-up. Afterward, when everyone is gasping for water and wondering how we're going to make it through 55 more minutes of post-warm-up actual class, she cries out, "Good morning, America! Good morning, boom-say! Wake up, boom-say!"

Add this to the fact that there is a woman in the front row whose face looks exactly like Ellen DeGeneres laughing her boom-say off. Other phrases that evoked laughter from faux-Ellen were, I believe, "More boom-say wiggle! More boom-say shake! More boom-say wiggle, more boom-say shake!", "come on, boom-say out, out," and "do not be afraid of the boom-say." What a way to start the day: loud, proud, and unafraid of the boom-say.