I am officially old. And let me tell you why. I went home to visit family last week. It was a great visit. I got to spend quality time with my parents and brother and sister-in-law, my SIL mom Alma and my sweet nieces.
Well those sweet nieces are at the age of having opinions and speaking up which I am thrilled about. Or, I thought I was. That was until we went on a little trip to Walgreens to grab them some goodies for their lunch the next day. While in there, music is playing throughout the store. Lyrical, no words. I realized quickly that I knew the song they were playing. So I started singing. The girls looked at me in horror. They were playing Vanilla Ice, Ice Ice Baby. Now I didn’t pick up on how mortified they were because I was so impressed with myself for actually remembering all the lyrics to a song that is 34 years old when most days I couldn’t tell you what I had for dinner the night before. I’m telling you, I would’ve won a karaoke contest with the confidence I had in myself at that moment.
It took me back to being in stores shopping with my grandmothers. One of them loved Lawrence Welk. We were in a store once when the tune Champagne Time came on. She loved that song. And she couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. I remember wincing a little as she hummed off key. I believe that song has no words but I always know it when I hear it because of the champagne pop at the beginning. After she would sing one of his songs she would say “Wunnerful, Wunnerful”. My other grandma loved Bing Crosby. We were in Publix, I was about 6 years old, and Accentuate The Positive came on over the speaker and she started singing it. She too would sing off key, I was just too young to care. I would sing right along with her, accentuating the positive all over the store.
My nieces didn’t take that route. They were definitely embarrassed. Not sure if it was my off key singing or the song that was on. But one thing they learned about their Aunt B last week. I will embarrass them and I can rap if need be. And they ought to count themselves lucky that I did not take a step further and moonwalk right out the front door of the store!