I dropped the RedHead off at band camp today. No, it’s not marching band band camp. It’s Rock Band Camp. This is where parents send their kids to A) see if they would like to learn a particular instrument B) form a band with other kids and learn how to play a rock song and C) six hours away from the house under the guise of “learning” so us parents can have a little “me” time - guilt free. My kid actually loves this place. It’s her second year there and she loves all of it - from forming a band to coming up with a band name to learning a song and then performing it. There are a lot of stage moms and dads at this place, hoping their child will be the next Eddie Van Halen or Taylor Swift, most of them look ridden hard and put away sweaty, with the bleached hair or the “Brazilian Blow-Out”, facial reconstruction, so skinny they look like refugees from a foreign country and way too much bling on their pants! And yes, this includes the men. When a man has more bling on his ass than I do, it’s no bueno!
So we get there this morning and we see a mom talking to a counselor. This mom obviously did not get the stage mom uniform memo. She was dressed as frumpy as could be, in a shiny olive green, way too long, pleated skirt and some old-lady slip on mules with a too-short-of-a-heel and a decorative knot on the top and a pretty horrible home perm. Remember Mrs. Kintner from Jaws? The one who says “My boy is dead!” to Chief Brody and slaps him? This woman is a dead ringer for her. Anyhoo, she was telling the camp counselor that her son, her precious angel, was upset that he wasn’t getting enough play time, kids weren’t nice to him, they were too loud and he wasn’t able to play the bass like he wanted. She kept going on and on about how someone needed to do something to help him and how he was sensitive and special and how he needed to feel welcomed. Her arm was on the sign in sheet and I didn’t dare interrupt her - this was priceless! I was as quiet as a church mouse so I could soak up all the delicious nonsense!
But after listening to her for less than a minute I realized that 1) he obviously didn’t go to public school and 2) she was turning her kid into a pussy. This wasn’t a 4 year old, this was an 11 year old boy. I’ve seen second graders who would eat this kid alive. What the hell was this woman doing? And she’s not the first one I’ve seen that has gone out of their way to make sure the powers that be know how special and smart and sensitive their kids are. If everyone is so special and so smart and so sensitive then doesn’t that mean that we’re all so special and so smart and so sensitive? And if we’re all so special and so smart and so sensitive then doesn’t that mean that we’re all the same? Holy motherfucker! At the end of the day there is always going to be the asshole, you just have to teach your kid how to deal with the asshole! I totally get this mom because I was her! Maybe not to that extent, but I wanted to make sure that nothing bad ever happened to the RedHead. I think we all do, right? So for the first years of the RedHead’s life I hovered over her like a tarp. I did everything for her and when she went to school I worked at the school to keep an eye on her, threatened kids who were mean to her (yes, I did), I was at that school morning, noon and night until my kid told me to back off and let her fight her own fight. Great. What was I gonna to do now?
So after 5 minutes of listening to how people should treat her young man, I’d had enough. As per my usual way of doing things, I stuck my foot in it. The counselor looked like a lost ball in tall grass, the mom looked ridiculous in her Alfred Dunner for Penney’s concoction and before I could stop myself, it just came out....“You get a bunch of kids in a room and they’re gonna get loud and there is always gonna be the jerk. And if there are drums and guitars involved, it’s gonna get even louder. It’s the nature of the beast.” The woman turns around and just stares at me. She was giving me the old “Mind your own fucking business" eye but I must admit, all I could see was Mrs. Kintner, dressed in black with that veil and her premature wrinkles and her most famous line “My boy is dead!” kept replaying in my brain. So I smiled and of course, I opened my big yap again (because I have no self control!) and say “He’ll be fine. Sometimes you gotta let the kids figure it out. Let him do his thing” and I walk out. “Let him do his thing”.....what was that? “Let him do his thing” What I really wanted to say was “Listen sister, let’s you and me hit the mall because that outfit is just not cutting it!”
