Some people felt that yesterday's Bad Music Thursday wasn't very Bad. That led me to thinking about music that other people have hated with a passion, that I didn't think was horrible to the same degree. My brother, for example, had two songs that caused him to descend into madness: "Age of Aquarious" by the Fifth Dimension, and Bette Midler's "The Rose."
Of the two, I remember his apoplectic fits about "The Rose" more sharply. He literally couldn't bear it. In fact, if it were playing in a public place, he would leave the building. Immediately.
This severe reaction led him to be holding a plastic grocery bag full of my vomit in a Salem, Massachusetts parking lot one day. More on that later. Thinking about that particular incident led me to think about that entire family vacation, a two-week period that encapsulates the comingled horror and delight that sum up my childhood.
It all started when...(cue flashback music, picture goes all wavy)
The summer between my sixth and seventh grades, my parents took my eldest sister (not double post), my brother and I on a family vacation to Niagra Falls and New England. This summer was a particularly awkward one for me: I was on the cusp of womanhood (my first period would arrive only weeks after our return from vacation), I was not very confident or coordinated, I was uncomfortable with my body ... you gals out there understand. I was vulnerable to attack. And I had an older brother and sister at home with me. It was like an episode of "Wild Kingdom," and I was the juicy, juicy gazelle with a limp.
The first onslaught came before we even left. A couple of days before our long journey eastward, I was watching Solid Gold. Suddenly, without warning, a video for the Rolling Stone's Start Me Up came on the television. I just sat there, waiting for it to end. Alas, my sister caught me watching it. "You LOVE him!" she said, pointing to Mick Jagger.
"I DO NOT!" I squealed, horrified. Truthfully, he terrified me -- those lips, those jarring movements, his exposed hairy armpits -- make it stop!
"Why are you watching him, then?" she said, with an evil, cunning smile curling her lips. "I bet he LOVES YOU!"
"Cut it out!" I implored. It was too late. I knew there was no stopping it. From that day and throughout the vacation, whenever I was peaceful and happy, my sister would start singing, "I'm so HOT FOR SUE, I'm so HOT FOR SUE, I'm so HOT FOR SUE..." I would tearfully cry for her to stop, but it only egged her on.
And this was only the beginning.
To be continued...
