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, at least for us. Judas Priest came to town, and this was a band neither of us had ever seen. They had been on both of our bucket lists. We HAD to go.

The great thing is, The Kid is really starting to embrace the bands that The Dude and I love. He has listened to hard rock and heavy metal since he was in utero, and we took him to his first concert when he was nine when we went to see Ozzy Osbourne and Slash on tour together. Since then, he has been to a few shows and we already have 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.

I don’t carry a large purse to these events. They usually pass a glance over it and hand it back. On this evening, though, the security lady 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.

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.

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.

Another example of seeing things differently with your kid in tow is the lady in front of us.  She got there early and was already pretty lit. She had an 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. The venue was 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 THISLCOSE to our faces.

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 The Kid and me snickering about the behavior in front of us, he admonished us. “Hey…she’s just having fun.”

The Kid grunted, “UGH!”

The Dude would not relent. “She’s just having a good time, man.”

I chimed in. “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.”

“You were more than a little sloppy.”

I shook my head. “Hang your head out the car window and throw up ONE TIME and you never live it down!”

Drunk lady aside, the show was 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. He didn’t give a damn about what people thought of him.

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.

“WHERE’S YOUR WIFE???” Drunk Lady screeched.

“She doesn’t listen to this music,” the guy said. “She’s at home.”

“HOW CAN SHE NOT LIKE THIS MUSIC???” Drunk Lady wondered loudly enough to be heard in Arkansas.

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

“OH, THAT’S RIGHT. YOU GOT A YOUNG ONE DIDN’T YOU???”

“Yeah. She was born in Eighty-eight.”

Now I was interested.

Nineteen-eighty-eight? Whaaaaaat?

“HOLY CRAP!” Drunk Lady screeched.  “I GRADUATED IN EIGHTY-FIVE!”

A random kid to my left started snickering.  “I was born in Eighty-nine.”

I was genuinely horrified now. Class of Eighty-nine, right here.

The Dude whispered in my ear, “Do you think that guy with the wife is rich or just has a big…”

The Kid started snort-laughing.

I have no end to this story, except that we are all going to Hell.

In a gold sequined handbasket.