My youngest kid is on the autism spectrum, my oldest is a moody (and moonstruck) teenager. Neither can sit through a movie. They both hate bowling. They’re not big on museums. Needless to say, it’s hard to find family activities.
But last night, I scored. Or, I should say, my ex-husband scored. He bought tickets to see P!nk in concert.
When he told me he wanted to take the boys, I was all, “Sure! Too bad you don’t have a fourth ticket for me.”
It was a line met with awkward silence.
I said, “Um… do you have an extra ticket for me?”
Brodi Ashton
It wasn’t for me, but I used my guilt skills and invited myself to the P!nk concert (Is everyone OK if I just spell it Pink from now on?) with my ex-husband, my autistic son and my moody teen.
But I thought, hey, it’s Pink! How cool is that?
To which my teen informed me that it would’ve been cool 10 years ago. And even though he “didn’t like” her music, he thought it could be “possibly fun.”
My younger son asked me all day, “I wonder if I will like a concert, but I wonder if I will hate it too.”
So, this motley crew went together.
The pre-show took a while, and during it, both sons played “Clash of Clans” on their phones and the older one asked how long this whole concert thing was going to take. I told him Pink would probably start her set around 9.
He was all, “So, like... an hour????”
Pink finally made her grand entrance (she literally danced mid-air around a flying chandelier.) As a mother, I thought it was slightly irresponsible. As a fan, I was omg omg omg!
The first song was “Get the Party Started,” and something strange happened. My teen put away his phone. I mean, like out of sight. He started singing and banging his head.
He sang so loud, and so off-key, that everyone in our section turned to look. (Afterward, he told my ex that everyone was looking at him because they were so impressed. I did not correct him.)
After three songs, he declared himself “vibin‘.”
And I was like, “Rad!”
And two generations automatically understood different languages.
My younger son, who has never sat still for an hour in his life, let alone three, sat the whole time. Granted sometimes it was on his knees, sometimes it was perched on the back of the chair like an eagle, but he was sitting.
When Pink sang the lyrics “Pretty pretty please, if you ever feel, like you are nothing, you are perfect to me.”
I told my teen that’s how I felt about him, because I can be sentimental that way. And he said, and I quote, “That’s how I feel about you too! Love you, Mom!”
I turned back to the show, pretty sure that at that moment, I could also fly mid-air around a chandelier.
“Pink’s, like, your age, right Mom?” the teen son said. He was looking at her dancing around in a catsuit, bending acrobatically around another dancer and a street lamp. “Wow.”
I took that to mean he was surprised how much Pink and I had in common, appearance wise. That’s how I bend when I’m sweeping: acrobatically around the counter and twisting cat-like around the table legs. Because that’s how I took it to mean so there are no give backs. Do not correct me. Of course that’s what he meant.
There was one moment of tension. After the concert, we attempted to jaywalk, but my younger son screamed that the cops were gonna get us and if they did, we owed him a hundred kittens. (Kittens are his jam right now.)
Since we can’t afford a hundred kittens, we thought better about jaywalking, and returned from halfway across a four-lane road.
My older son was still elated about the concert. He said, “You know, Mom, Pink for our time was like Beatrice for Shakespeare’s time in ‘Much Ado About Nothing.’”
And that’s when I knew aliens had abducted my child. You thought this was going to be a column about the concert?
Nope. It’s about body-snatchers.
OK, maybe it wasn’t aliens, but he really did say that.
All of this is to say who knew the only overlap in our family Venn diagram would be Pink?
I don’t know, but the next morning I told my teen I felt like a gnarly mom.
He just rolled his eyes and pulled out his phone.