new kids

you may think that i don't realize that i am entirely too old for such ridiculous reindeer games...but i do.  i swear it. 

last night the new kids on the block were in concert here and i wasn't there.  this is probably the only new kids on the block concert that i have missed since i was, like, 12...except for one, when i was out of town.  oh, my friend and i were going to go...but when i went to purchase the tickets, the cheapest one i could find was $70.  and that didn't include all the tax, handling, and the "you-30-some-odd-middle-aged-crazy-girl-clearly-trying-to-re-live-some-childhood-dream-so-therefore-will-pay-with-your-oldest-child's-college-savings-just-to-see-these-boys-from-a-view-that-needs-binoculars' fees.  so...it was going to end up costing around 85 big ones just to get in the doors.  that didn't include dinner, drinks, and parking. 

so.  we didn't go.

i just can't believe i said that.

but i just couldn't do it.  i was needing a dress to wear to a wedding this summer.  and the new, black, cowgirl boots to go with it, because...duh...my brown ones don't match.  and we are headed all over the U.S. here in a couple of weeks for, like, a month and a half of vacations and i know i will find some "must-haves" on this one.   plus...we just made some serious upgrades to the house.  plus, i got that proactive face stuff i'd been wanting.  so...i just sort of thought, "wait a second here!  i have spent a ginormous amount of money on these fellows, and what have they actually done for me?  the way i figure it...they owe me.  i, single handedly kept their careers going in the early 90's and i even let them call me "mindez" for years due to an unfortunate typo.  why should i pay this much to sit that far away?"  it really was like that moment in the movie father of the bride where george banks goes to the grocery store in a too-tight, 70's tux and starts "removing the superfluous buns because some big shot over at the weeny company got with some big shot over at the bread company and decided to rip off the american public."  there were only 8 hot dogs to a package and 10 buns to a package...so he removed the superfluous buns.  and got thrown in the slammer.  the point being...i'm not spending colt's college fund on the new kids.

which reminds me...when i was still planning on going to the concert, one night i asked chad if he would get online and buy the new kids tickets for us.  the kids were in the room and aiden piped up, "WE ARE BUYING NEW KIDS????   BOYS OR GIRLS???"  example number 1 as to why it may be time to let go of the dream.

let me take this moment to just give my husband a big shout out for even tolerating all of this nonsensory.  remember babe...this unbridled passion is why you fell in love with me in the first place.  smile.

the ship has sailed.  i'm not going to marry joe and be mindy mcintyre and use one big M to write both names the way i signed all of my notes back in the day...and thank the sweet Lord, really.  i don't really like the name "joe."  i like "chad" way better.  they will never know how many concert t-shirts i have or how many times i have gone to see them.  they will never know how we talked my dad into spending all night in the grocery store parking lot where the tickets were going to go on sale the next morning, and how i slept in a gross grocery cart.  they will never know the money spent on teen bop magazine and other memorabilia.  they will never know that i have a trunk filled with all that stuff to show my kids some day up in the top of my closet.  they will never know that they got me through jr. high because i loved them and they never rejected me the way the other boys did.  i'm not going to meet them.  they will never know that i exist or that my bedroom walls were wallpapered with their faces.  joe will never know that i slept on his face because i had a joe mcintyre pillowcase.  they will never know that i honestly thought i was going to attend boston college so that i could meet them one day.  they will never know the number of hours that i spent daydreaming of our meeting, pining over them, and listening to their music or talking about them with girlfriends.  they will never know that the punishment that i remember most vividly from childhood is when my mom grounded me from watching their special on TV because i didn't clean my room and how i sobbed until my eyes were swollen into little slits when i accidentally hung up when i was the 9th caller because i thought that i wasn't the winning caller on the radio station backstage pass give away and then the radio station said that the 9th caller winner had hung up and they played it on the air...so my dad called back for me because i was so distraught and they said that there was nothing they could do about it and i knew then and there that i had blown my chance and that i was the dumbest girl in the world for not knowing that #9 was the winning number.  they will just never know.

oh well.

it's time to let go.

so, instead of going to the concert last night, i hung out with my family.  and when 9:30 rolled around and i knew that they were probably on stage singing please don't go girl, i sent the kids up to clean the playroom because i swear to you, if i have to pick up one more item of clothing and toys of theirs off the floor after i have already asked them to clean it up my head is going to start spinning around and pop off. 

maybe...just maybe...if i can get chad to agree...we will go with aiden's way of thinking.  we will buy a new kid.  it's a different way to live out my new kid dream, but way better.  don't ya think?