Glorious things happened today.
It was -- miraculously -- not raining during my drive to The Cubicle this morning. Even better, there were slices of REAL, actual, unadulterated BLUE SKY. There were mountains with sun shining on them. For all of the delight I felt barreling down the freeway on my way in to The Cubicle today it may as well have been my birthday, anniversary AND the day I wake up without split ends, jiggly hips and can afford to buy those Adriano Goldschmied Angel cut destroyed jeans without remorse.
The heavens opened up for me today and a beautiful, sparkly beam of Jesus Juice followed my little, unwashed Toyota and me all the way to work.
Also, as it's Monday, it's the day that I cruise along to an Alanis "Jagged Little Pill" soundtrack, deem it Flashback Monday and discover the following:
I discover that singing along with Alanis at any point in the day, but particularly first thing in the morning, means that I sound something like a cat in heat.
And something like a dog who's just had its paw slammed in the sliding door.
And something like Aaron Neville after a swift punch to the balls.
I also discover that singing along with Alanis at any point in the day makes that point in the day that much better. For instance, that moment cruising across the the lake on I90 and seeing SUNSHINE for the first time in MONTHS is both an incredible blessing, cause for shrieks of joy, AND is made better by singing along with "Mary Jane" in the background. Every point in the day THAT much better.
AND I discover that singing along with Alanis will ALWAYS bring back the memories of the first time I tried buying her CD. Aside from "No Singing at the Table," and "Don't Leave Your Discarded String Cheese Wrappers Sitting Around Where Dad Can See Them" (don't ask) the "first time I tried buying an Alanis CD" memory is one of my favorite examples of my parents exercising their right to create arbitrary rules for their happy, table-singing, string cheese wrapper-tossing, Bad, Bad Music-buying children.
Huh?
Yeah.
So. 14 year-old Heather (who was probably wearing knock-off Doc Martens, dark green jeans (YES.), a giant flannel shirt stolen from Dad and a scrunchie on her wrist) was browsing CDs at Fred Meyer during a weekly grocery shopping trip. Heather spied Jagged Little Pill. She showed it to Dad who, in an unexpected moment of teen girl pop music fluency, said, "Hey, she's nominated for some Grammys!" which Heather took as his understated acquiescence to Heather's purchase of the CD (because parental acquiescence was critical at this point; she was a good little middle school kid who listened to nice, clean music and had nice, clean friends and was only interested in nice, clean boys who attended her church and absolutely viewed cigarettes and fruit-flavored malt beverage as agents of the Devil and would not have dreamed of listening to anything so impure as a singer-songwriter who dared sing the "F word" without at least implied parental consent; she was no moron.).
She proudly carted her Pill home, excited to turn up the freshly procured copy of "All I Really Want" at maximum cheap boom box volume in the bedroom, surrounded by nice, clean pictures of kittens snipped from several years of old calendars and a nice, clean picture of Keanu Reeves from Speed in the corner where it seemed less sinful. Extraordinarily well-behaved, this Heather.
CD is enjoyed for a week or so. Fast forward to the Grammys. We gather to watch; this is back when awards shows still managed some shred of glamourous believability and the suspense actually felt a little more authentic. Alanis performed "You Oughta Know"live.
Alanis had to be censored. You know the line. "And are you thinking of me when you _____ DEAD AIR SPACE______ her?"
Oh, mother jumped up like....well, like Aaron Neville after a swift punch to the balls and made a fantastically unilateral declaration:
"NONE OF YOU ARE ALLOWED TO BUY HER CD."
Because she's not nice and clean, obviously.
Panic.
Complete and utter panic.
Must not let her find out that I've already purchased the not nice, not clean CD and listened my little heart out over the past week -- miraculously, WITHOUT turning into a wayward, cigarette smoking, fruit-flavored malt beverage-drinking, cursing, school-skipping, non-virgin at any point during the listening process. But it's early yet. The effects might be cumulative - I might be simply one more "You Oughta Know" listen from that wayward, not nice, not clean lifestyle.
So I do what any lunch money-conscious 14 year-old would do.
Sold it to a friend.
Ah. Now I can rest easy.
Now I don't have to shove the CD case furtively under the pillow when Mom comes into my bedroom. Now I don't have to worry that the finger of God will split the skies and strike me down or afflict me with an out-of-wedlock pregnancy (fate worse than church girl death). Now I'm back in everyone's good graces, without Mom (or God!) even being the wiser for it.
The catch: my friend took some reasonable amount of pity on me and made me a cassette tape copy.
Er, she played the CD on her computer and set a tape recorder up next to the computer speakers and hit "record" so I ended up with this sort of pirated-sounding bootleg version that I left discretely UN-labeled and listened to on my Walkman when I was safely out of the house.
If we believe it, I still managed to make it through my formidable years without smoking cigarettes or drinking Smirnoff Ice of any flavor or letting any boys shove their hand up my shirt, even if I wanted them to. Pregnancies averted. Didn't become a runaway. Didn't swear like a truck driver or skip any classes or even so much as take the Lord's name in vain for years and years to come.
They did good, those parents of mine.
It was years before I told Mom this story.
I think I was still afraid she might confiscate my digital copy of the album....?????
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