A Gold Sequined Handbasket

Well, it happened, People. I went out on a weeknight to a real event where I had to put on real pants and everything.

I know. You’re all shocked. I am too.

It was a special event, for us anyway. The band Judas Priest came to town and though The Husband Dude and I have always been Metal fans, this was a band neither of us had ever seen that was also on both of our bucket lists. We HAD to go.

The great thing is, Shane is really starting to embrace the bands that THD and I love. He has listened to Hard Rock/Heavy Metal literally since he was in utero, and we took him to his first concert when he was nine and we went to see Ozzy Osbourne and Slash when they toured together. Since then, he has been to a few shows and we’ve already got tickets for two more in the coming year.

Of course, going to a rock concert with your child creates a whole different level of awareness when you’re a Mom. Things that used to barely make a blip on your radar or that you always took for granted are suddenly seen with a fresh set of eyes.

It started with the pocket/purse search at the entrance to the show.

They’ve pretty much been doing that as far back as I can remember. Back in the day, they wanted to make sure you didn’t have a camera for illicit photos or drugs for illicit fun. I imagine they were also checking for anything that could be used as a weapon back then, but that kind of thing wasn’t as big of a concern because you never heard of anyone shooting up a crowd or planting a bomb in those days.

But my son does not live in that world anymore. He had to empty his pockets out while I opened up my purse for them to search.

I don’t carry a large purse to these events. It’s just a small clutch that you can hook a shoulder strap to and wear it cross-body style. Usually, when I carry a bag like that, they kind of glance inside and pass it back to me.

On this evening, though, she looked in all three compartments, opened the zipper on the back, then went back to the previous three compartments again.

You can never be too careful with a woman that carries spiced mauve lip gloss and her medical insurance card. Remember this scene from Airplane 2? (Courtesy of Personal Liberty)

You’ll never convince me that there isn’t some profiling going on. We went to a Garth Brooks concert (my first and only country music concert ever) and I saw more incidents of drunkenness and rowdiness than any rock show I’ve ever been to. Yet, they barely glanced at my bag then.

But I guess people wearing black with skulls on their shirts (and in my case, my purse) are a lot scarier than cowboy hats and boots, so we all got the Homeland Security treatment.

This happened to me in an airport as well. I usually don’t raise any flags whatsoever. They’ll search my purse and run me through the body scanner but that’s about it. But on this one particular occasion when I was flying back home to El Paso, I was carrying an Ed Hardy bag.

If you’re familiar with Ed Hardy designs, they are patterned after old-school tattoos and they usually have a lot of skulls on them. This particular bag was a tote style, black, with a large colorful skull on the front.

They removed EVERYTHING from that bag and looked at it. They searched my entire carry on as well. Then, they ran me through the body scanner and after that, a large burly woman with rubber gloves got to second base with me.

And after all that, they tapped me on the shoulder again as I was in line to board and told me they needed to search my Ed Hardy bag again.

I could’ve argued and raised a fuss, but there’s no point in that. I don’t need to get arrested when I’m trying to catch a flight. But I was NOT going to get out of line to do it. This was Southwest airlines, the General Admission of airlines. I had gotten there extra early and stood in line for forty five minutes to be able to board in the “A” group.

I literally had been about to hand the lady my boarding pass when they pulled this crap. So I looked at the guy and said, “You may search it again as much as you want, but you’ll do it right here in line and all these people can wait while you do it.”

I heard a rumble behind me from the line, but then all eyes turned to the TSA guy to see what he would do. I handed him my bag. “Go ahead.”

Got to give him credit. He followed through and searched it, but probably not as thoroughly as he would have had I stepped aside. He kind of pushed some things around inside the bag and then handed it back with a polite, “Thank you ma’am.”

Back to the concert, though. Another example of seeing things differently with your kid in tow, is the lady in front of us.  She got there fairly early and was already pretty lit. She had a really annoying and loud, high-pitched voice and she was one of those drunk people that feels they have to shout everything, even when there’s no music playing.

Her two male companions had already arrived and were drinking when she showed up, screeching like an owl at midnight. They were blaring AC/DC’s “Back in Black” and she was in the mood to dance.

Since the show hadn’t started, we were still sitting down, so her ass was thisclose to our faces.

And while a hormonal teenage boy might usually enjoy having a female shake her ass in his face, the same hormonal teenage boy will become quite nauseous when said ass-shaker looks like she’s fifty.

When The Husband Dude heard Shane and me snickering about the behavior in front of us, he admonished us.

THD: Hey…she’s just having fun.

Shane: UGH!

THD: She’s just having a good time, man.

Me: Oh sure. Some random lady acting like an idiot in front of an arena full of people is ‘just having fun’. I get a little sloppy at J’s birthday party and you barely spoke to me for three days.

THD: You were more than a little sloppy.

Me: Hang your head out the car window and throw up ONE TIME and you never live it down!

Drunk lady aside, the show was really awesome. It doesn’t matter that Rob Halford, the lead singer, is sixty-six years old. He can still hit all the high notes and has not blown out his voice, as many other metal singers have done with years of too much partying and not really understanding how to sing.

I’ll tell you what I love about Rob, in addition to the fact that he’s a crazy-good front man. I love that he came out of the closet at a time when it still wasn’t “in vogue” to do so and that he did it in a music genre that reveres “manly men” who wear black leather, drink until they black out, and screw as many women as possible. And he didn’t give a damn what people thought of him.

Of course, anybody who was really paying attention would’ve probably guessed at some point. I mean, let’s be honest, back in the 80’s heavy metal dudes had long greasy hair and wore black leather and t-shirts that were so filthy they could stand up by themselves. Halford had a short buzz cut and dressed like the Motorcycle guy from the Village People.

Clearly, he has a sense of fashion, as he changed jackets between nearly every song and they were all a variation of something studded or sequined. He proved that there’s no reason why Heavy Metal can’t be fabulous.

As we were walking up the stairs to leave the arena, Drunk Lady was trailing behind us. I guess she spotted someone she knew because she screeched a greeting at him. This guy with short, white hair looking to be in his early fifties, waved at her.

Drunk Lady (screeching): WHERE’S YOUR WIFE???

Dude: She doesn’t listen to this music. She’s at home.

Drunk Lady: HOW CAN SHE NOT LIKE THIS MUSIC???

Dude: She wasn’t even born when we were listening to this back in the day.

Drunk Lady: OH THAT’S RIGHT. YOU GOT A YOUNG ONE DIDN’T YOU???

Dude: Yeah. She was born in ’88.

Me:

Drunk Lady: HOLY CRAP! I GRADUATED IN ’85!

Random Kid To My Left (snickering): I was born in ’89.

Me (having graduated in ’89):

THD (whispering in my ear): Do you think that guy with the wife is rich or just has a big…

Shane:

I have no ending to this story. We’re all going to Hell.

In a gold sequined handbasket.