My husband and I decided to take our son to Grrrrrrrrreat Staaaate Faaaair of Texaaaasssss yesterday. We had a great day, with chili dogs and venison chili from a cooking display and free ice cream and smelly farm animals and then, in the afternoon, a free Beach Boys concert.
The concert wasn’t supposed to start until 5:30 pm, so around 4:30, I went to the area where they were having it and grabbed a spot by sitting down on the ground like a lot of other people (including one woman who I strongly suspected had died from dehydration and/or heat exhaustion until somebody accidentally tripped over her and she got up,yelling indignantly) were doing. DH took the kiddo off to keep him occupied until the show started. Roughly in front of me was a group of very loud, somewhat drunk older adults in their late 50s or early 60s. As it got closer to the start of the concert, everybody who was sitting down (there were no actually seats…it was like a giant mosh pit surrounded by fence things on three sides and a low stone wall on a fourth) stood up and started to press forward to make room for people coming in at the back. A young man with a flaming red afro moved to my left and made to move in front of me accidentally brushed one of the women from the group in front of me.
“EXCUSE ME! WE (she motioned to her group) have been here since THREE O CLOCK! THIS IS OUR SPACE!” she yelled at him and he looked kinda confused. A guy behind me muttered that he expected this kind of behavior from Manhattan-ites back home but not from Southerners. Then the woman who’d yelled at the afro-d young man gave him the finger.
“Mommy…is she being mean?” my son asked. “What does 'motherfucking son of a bitch mean?”
I told my son to sit down, play with my husband’s phone (DS didn’t want to be there, but seeing as he’s 11 and autistic and both DH and I really DID want to be there…he kind of didn’t have a choice. And we rewarded him later for putting up with our old fart bullshit by buying him a shirt he wanted) and chill out.
Anyway…Mike Love and Bruce Johnston and the rest of the not-so-original Beach Boys come on and do a great show. About 3/4 of the way through the show, one of the women from the group in front of me yells in my ear that these YOUNG PEOPLE (she gestures to the afro-d young man as well as a couple of teenage girls who are squealing fan-girlishly every time Mike Love points to the crowd and blows kisses like he’s Justin Bieber or one of those guys from One Direction) need to go to the back because they’re not OLD ENOUGH to appreciate this kind of music.
“YOU’RE not old enough…how old are you? FORTY TWO?” she leans in my face and she could not have smelled more like alcohol than if she’d been dumped into a vat of Budweiser head first. The drunk woman leans on me and grabs my hand, as if we’re suddenly best friends. “You’re sooooo cute.”
I assume she thought that maybe I was a guy…I have short hair for a woman, I was wearing a slightly baggy teeshirt, jeans and a baseball cap. So it’s plausible…maybe…that she thought I was a guy. I pushed her off gently and went back to jumping up and down and furiously doing the monkey while the band rocked out on “I Get Around”. The drunk woman leaned on me again.
“You’re so cute. You should dance with me. Dance with me!” she demanded, grabbing my arms, her two inch long neon painted talons brushing my chest. At that point, I was kind of weirded out and ducked behind my 6 ft tall 300 lbs husband.
"Oh I’m not…please dance with meeeee…"the drunk woman pleaded and I kind of shook my head. “Nah. I’m ok…really!” I replied while still hiding behind my husband.
Afterwards, we got to go to a little meet n greet (read: Get the fuck in line, you have 30 seconds to take a photo NO TOUCHING THE BEACH BOYS! And absolutely no autographs!). In the picture, I’m holding a small beach ball somebody handed me and I look like I’m being electrocuted because I was so freaking excited/nervous.
