Hey! It’s May 30th in Indy and you know what that means: the Indy 500 race is over, tornadoes have hit, the Little Flower Catholic Church had their festival and the New Kids On The Block are playing a concert in Indianapolis! My FB page is exploding with folks I know posting pictures of themselves partying at various bars or arriving at the venue.
Ummm…here is where I smile. The folks I am referring to are kids that have morphed into 35 year-olds (and then some) adult women. My own daughters would have been there if the planets had lined up in the right order. Yes…those same daughters that had NKOTB pajamas, cassette tapes, t-shirts, posters, hats, underwear, (I am can’t swear to that one….but I bet I’m right), figures, games, cards, you get the idea. There was no Christmas, birthday or Easter basket that did not contain this stuff. And when a new product was advertised, my girls went through the CHILD VS. MOTHER RANT which was a cross between begging, family promises and a layer of mom- guilt that went something like this:
“I can’t live without this, PLEEEZ, Mom, I’ll do a thousand chores, I’ll watch Nick (younger, annoying, little, brother at that time), I’ll clean my room, I’ll organize World Peace, and even do my homework without being told. I’ll even wear that headgear for my braces! If only you will buy this NKOTB outfit! (And now the big guns come out:) EVERYBODY has them! I’ll be the ONLY girl without this outfit! PLEEZ Mom, if you love me….”
And then it happened. The parent caved, the kid won, and before the next latest and greatest recording was released, all NKOTB items were stuffed in the box for the next garage sale. No clean rooms, no headgear for the braces –even located–let alone worn, and not everyone at school had the outfit. In fact, the truth be known, by the time this mother could afford two sets of all begged for items, they probably were out of style. Sigh. Urgency and my wallet were oxymorons. Too bad. So sad. Or as my daughter says to her offspring today (yes that same daughter in aforementioned paragraph), “Suck it up Buttercup.”
Yep, we have all blissfully matured from our days of worshipping the Beatles, the Monkees, Bon Jovi, New Kids on the Block, and New Direction. And yes I did just jump through about three generations there. Like that? I can do better. The New Kids on the Block groupies are now the thirty-somethings who live down the road… enjoying mortgages, babies and teenagers, homework wars, dandelions and crabgrass challenges, and kids who MUST HAVE tickets to see Five Seconds of Summer this summer.
I have only one thing to say to that: Nope. Oh…and “Suck it up, Buttercup!”
The real truth is that your mother just spent your concert money on her concert.
Rock out mama….you’re only a new kid on the block once.
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