You know how you'll hear an old song and it takes you back and makes you feel all warm and gushy and young and nostalgic? That didn't happen to me tonight.
The girls have friends over. The house was loud. The hubs was frustrated with me. I wanted a beer - no, a martini - no, a margarita - no, a shot of tequila - no, a really cold shot of Jaeger. But I couldn't do any of that. Remember? The girls have friends over. Just what I want them to go home telling their parents... So no mommy juice for me. But I still needed to get out - the walls were closing in. Just for a little bit. Just for some air.
So I went to the grocery store. As you do.
As I'm shuffling through the grocery store feeling frumpy and more than just a little sorry for myself, the song "Chevy Van" is being played on the muzak. I know it's not muzak anymore, but I reserve the right to use the term anyway, because I darn well like it. Anyway. "Chevy Van". Now this is definitely not a squeeee worthy "OHMIGODILOVETHISSONG" kind of song. Although it might be a nice tune for one of those SNL skits where the stories of "the first time I heard this song, I was..." get exponentially more ridiculous and uncomfortable with each repeat of the chorus... But I digress. It was a nice little tune that came out when I was a pre-teen. I was aware of and familiar with it. That's all. But hearing it tonight at the grocery store in the mood I was in, it just made me so sad. I got that familiar hot feeling behind my eyes and I said to myself (I said) "you will not cry over a 70's country/pop song all by yourself in the middle of Kroger on a Saturday night. You. Will. Not. Now pull yourself together and head for the dairy aisle. Milk and eggs aren't going to buy themselves."
Hormones are wicked, wicked entities.
I was mourning the freedom and sweetness and beauty expressed in this song about a one-night-stand with a hitchhiker. Because I used to have tan legs and moonlight in my hair, damn it! I'm sure I did! And now I'm grocery shopping on a Saturday night AS AN OUTING!!!
Does anyone remember the Tracy Ullman video for "TheyDon'tKnow" (cleverly referenced in the title of this post) which begins with a glamorous Tracy falling in love and ends with her shuffling through the grocery store in pink fuzzy slippers, pregnant, disheveled and with a little kid or two? That was exactly how I felt.
That video ends with her looking glamorous again and driving off into the sunset with Paul McCartney, though. So there's that...
For now, though, time to "get some sleep and dream of rock and roll" (lyric - Chevy Van 1973)
50 comments:
Crawl in and take control, for Christ sake. And btw, I once teared up over Dorah the frakkin explorer, so I think you can be forgiven, cause I'm really frakkin cool. And besides, you write like it's coming straight outta your heart. That's hard to beat. Keep on doin it, girl.
Jesus. There must be something in the air. The cold, unforgiving, bitter sonfoabitch of the winter air, sister. I have been in a funk since I got back from New Orleans on Sunday and your post about sums it up. It certainly does so a lot more eloquently than my almost idenitcal post from yseterday does from over at Chez Zimmer. For the record - slip vodka in your OJ and the gorls' friends will never know.
Well, I think for the remainder of the bitter winter I'm going to start yelling the following at any small person who asks me "Why?" (as in why can't I have that? why can't a friend come over? why can't you sing one more song?):
"Because I used to have tan legs and moonlight in my hair, dammit! I'm sure I did!"
Thank you for the perfect blanket response. Classic.
Happens to me all the time.
And then I just snarl at people with tears in my eyes and they open a spare checkout for me to get me the hell outta there.
Awesome.
Beautiful. They don't know, not yet anyway.
I decided to go ahead and give in to my inner Tracy. My kids have gotten used to my second adolescence as long as I keep in under control on the first few times I meet a new girlfriend of theirs. Also, I give them cash they can either give to a therapist or the payee of their choice, so it's all good. If Mama ain't happy, everybody's crying.
I love that song!
I know how you felt in the grocery store. I don't have as much self-control and I actually cry standing in the isle trying to appear that I am reading the can or box with my hair hiding my face. What happens to our youth? It is so, so short and the next thing you know...it is gone and now I'm feeling old. :o(
Going to the grocery store became an outing after I had my son. Sometimes we walk around Target and sing to their muzak just to get out of the house (and by we I mean I, because the best Menininho can do is yell BAAAAA).
I do that all the time with songs on the radio and I LOVE that song :) That was my era. Though I have NO idea why they are all considered oldies LOL!!!
Happy SITS Day!!
Know the feeling and it sounds like there is alot of that. I would like to blame our husbands, what do ya think?
Happy SITS day! :)
Sadly this happens to me. A lot. *sigh* I usually just let my head explode and woe betide the people in the way .:p
Love this line: "And now I'm grocery shopping on a Saturday night AS AN OUTING!!!" LOL! Enjoyed your post, so funny!
Happy SITS Day!
Yup, funny how times change. :)
Oh wow, I do remember that music video! And you're certainly not the only one who considers grocery shopping on a Saturday night as an outing - that's when I like to do my grocery shopping because I can do it by myself, which therefore makes it an outing! :)
Wait so you get to go somewhere ALONE on a Saturday night?? SO NOT FAIR!! If I go anywhere alone I have to call the house repeatedly to ensure daddy dearest has not gone comatose on the couch and my boys are not rearranging furniture and tearing off wall photos...
Been there!
That happens to me on occasion. It's usually out of the blue. And I agree with the wicked hormones part...depending on my mood, an old song can make me laugh, cry or conjure up a memory in an instant. Mostly how I remember feeling at the age I was when I first heard it.
Funny thing how we tie memories to songs. I wonder will it always be that way...even when I'm 70? Time will tell...which reminds me:
time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' into the future......
:)
I go to the grocery store as an evening outing all the time. My life is sad. :) I think they should start having happy hour at the grocery store. That would be awesome.
Yeah, I was that girl with tan legs and moonlight in her hair, too. Only I was too naive to know that. I don't think I recognized that about myself then. Now, it's too late. Maybe I need to play to "Chevy Van" and have a good cry.... Or I could just go to the local grocery store to "get out". LOL!
Sometimes an US Weekly or InTouch helps a little. Just a little. Sometimes.
Stopping by from SITS.
I'm going to listen to that song now and cry for our former selves!
My best, Lynn
Hormones are indeed wicked...but great rationale for late night shopping!
Songs can do that to you. I remember balling my eyes out in the parking lot of JC Penney the first time I heard the Luther Vandross song "Dance With My Father". Wait, I'm getting emotional right now just thinking about it.
Congratulations on your SITS day!
The sucky part is that when our kids are older (and we are too) and we can do more than go to the grocery store on a Saturday night "as an outing", we probably won't because we will be too old and tired :-(
Tammy, you are a wonderful writer. I'm so glad I found your blog through SITS. You have definitely acquired a new, faithful follower!
OMG - that is to damn funny and unfortunately, accurate!
I remember the video and remember laughing my young, tight teen butt off at it. Not so funny anymore!
Congrats on you SITS day!
You should have seen how excited I was when I learned Target was open until 10 in some areas ;)
Now that's an outing.
Happy FB day!
god, how i hate being a hostage to hormones! bring it on, menopause!
I have SO been there! It really is incredible how powerful music is and how it transports us back in time with a flood of memories! I was crafting yesterday and had the cable TV music station on (Party Favorites ~ which covers just about every genre). What a journey that was! First "love", family road-trips as a child, college, wedding...
I love your blog and I LOVE your writing! :) Happy SITS day!
Don't feel bad. When I first moved to North Carolina from Florida (blech, from city to country... not a pleasant transition), I was in Lowe's Foods grocery store and I heard a song that reminds me of my brother, who I'm very close to and who still lives in Florida. I started bawling in the middle of the aisle.
I have a love/hate relationship with the songs that make me nostalgic. It's like, even though they make my stomach turn and my eyes well up, I can't stop listening to them.
Been there! Oh, especially after my daughter was born and I literally had not been anywhere for weeks! I was actually excited about my OBGYN post-partum check up. When they called to reschedule it (some lady was needing a c-section!!) I actually cried. Hormones... Happy SITS!
Nice. I know what you mean. "A night out" certainly changes with time & children. Now I'm trying to remember when that song came out and what I was doing.
@cheapchichome.blogspot.com
I do remember that video. Oh my..that is what it has come to hasn't it? I can't tell you ow often I cry in the car.
i must say-there is no denying the power of music to take you back to another time or catapult you forward into some imagined future. i, too, find my saturday nights way less exciting than they used to be.
Well I'm glad I'm not the only mom out there who heads to the grocery store as an outing. My hubby thinks I should love it and always refers to grocery shopping as my "me time". Gak.
I've been having a lot of nostalgia while hearing random old songs in stores, restaurants. Thinking back to simpler times and wondering how did 20 years go by so fast?
I think we moms can all relate to this--shuffling through the grocery store. I often go in my sweats with messy hair and know things have gotten bad when I am debating over which vinyl tablecloth will look better! Great writing here! You have the gift of being able to really tell a story and capture the reader's attention. I enjoyed my visit today (from SITS) and hope you had a great SITS day! :)
I still get tan legs, but now they have veins and scars and... yeah.
Happy SITS Day! Three posts and I'm hooked. Signing up to follow now...
***Ally
oh the grocery store blues... I'm sure that's a great title for a country western song.
Happy SITS day.
Great writing! Glad you were the featured blog on SITS. :)
I can so relate...music does this to me too. I wish I could blame hormones, but I've always been this way...songs will whisk me away somewhere else, bring back bittersweet memories, move me to tears....
Boy can I relate.
I agree! Hormones are wicked!
:*-(
I've so been there. Except it was a Redner's in the southeast of Pennsylvania, a Thursday night this past July and the song was ... well, hell, I can't remember the song now. It was something that I would otherwise have classed cheesy. And it resurfaces at the most inopportune times.
Been there. Done that. You know what song totally does me in? Tom Petty's "Free Falling," because I used to be so free...
Wow, the imagery here is awesome. I feel ya. Sometimes I see or hear something that makes me ask myself, "How did I get here?"
Shit Tammy, you get to go grocery shopping on a Saturday night. That sounds downright glamorous to me. I haven't left the house on a Saturday night in 14 months.
Oh, I know:( The older I get the sadder some of the oldies sound to me.
Heck, the oldies station is now starting to play 80s music! 80 music!!
I have been in a funk forever, so all songs can get me crying buckets.
...Been there too often.
That's pretty much how I get on Saturdays when I'm watching a Gator game. They show a commercial about UF and I get all misty remembering those glorious college days!
Ah, yes I've had those moments and unfortunately, I have cried! The key is to get over it and quickly move on. Great post.
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