Yes, you read right, dear readers!  I finally got up the nerve to join the Random Dungeon Finder as a tank.  I was slightly disappointed that I wasn't thrown an invite in 10 seconds, but it was still pretty quick!

It ended up that I got a group that had already started Utgarde Keep - they were only three pulls in and this is what I see:

[RetPally]:  You better be a real tank Cel, or we're kicking you - I'm just telling you now
[RetPally]:  And you better be Frost
[HealSham]:  Fo' real
[Me]:  Oh shit

Since, y'know... this was my first instance as a tank ever, I'm sure I didn't fall into the "real tank" category.  However, I didn't tell them this and apparently being specced Frost was enough for them.  It turned out that they were the pushy group that was all, "Go go go NOW NOW NOW" and we had that boomkin that was always inching towards everything and "accidentally" pulling.  Because they wanted to blast through so quickly, Utgarde Keep was really a blur to me that time - my hands were shaking, I was mashing buttons blindly and when Lus came in from work, I wouldn't even look at him.  I (practically) snapped at him, "I can't talk to you right now.  I'm trying not to be horrible."  In my defense, it was the first boss fight and my first boss fight ever as a Real Tank™.

In fact, it went well enough that after the last boss I was invited to join their guild - to be leveled up and geared up so I was on par with everyone else.  I was extremely flattered by this and it boosted my confidence a lot and I took it as a sign that I hadn't fallen into the dreaded Fail Knight category.  They pushed the guild thing more... I demurred, thinking that by saying, "I'm probably not as experienced a tank as you're looking for" wasn't a lie of omission but I finally got the point across - a whole instance later.

I was invited after UK to go run the Nexus - although I did make it clear that I hadn't run it in a LONG time and hadn't ever tanked it.  "You'll be fine!" they assured me.  That instance went pretty smoothly too (despite the damn boomkin with a death wish) but my biggest screw up was porting out of the instance after Ormorok the Tree-Shaper thinking we were done.  It had been so long and I was still so wired that I had completely forgotten Keristrasza!  (Yes, I did feel the shame.)  However, no other blunders were made, tanking or otherwise.

The First Foray into Tanking:  Good!  I'm not paralyzed with fear like I was before I actually queued, but I'm still a little shaky in my tanking boots.  However, now that the first steps have been taken, I know I'll get better with practice.  I had the usual post-First fears that I voiced to Naithin and he gave me this advice:

Mashing buttons and making it look convincing is what tanking is all about!  Class changes merely how hard you need to mash and what it looks like on screen!