Life Sure Has Changed Since I Was Ten

Friday, we headed up to Chicago so I could get a much-needed dose of nostalgia with my BFF and so Stephen and Asher could enjoy taking a road trip. I was wary about dragging my ten month-old baby, Mr. Squirmy, along on a three hour car ride, but he surprised me. For 95% of the ride, he was either sleeping or a happy boy. I think it helped that Stephen's parents let us borrow the mini-van so we could more comfortably transport all of our crap and not feel like we were in a sardine can. If I wasn't yearning for a van before, I really am now.

We arrived at the hotel with things seeming to be beyond perfect. We were literally a block away from the Allstate Arena, so Angie and I could just walk over for the concert. There was a Target right next door, which was great considering our tradition of always forgetting to bring something along. When we checked into the hotel, we were upgraded from a suite with a sofa bed to a two-bed, two-bath with a full kitchen. Score! And, as I'd stated in a previous post, Angie won our tickets from a radio station. How much more good luck could we have?

Apparently, not much. We got in the arena to have our tickets scanned, only for them to come up as void in their system. The nice lady nonchalantly told us to go across the street to the box office, where they would reissue them for us. We didn't panic; she was making it sound like this had been a common issue. It was when we got to the box office that we panicked: we were told that the radio station had reported the tickets were lost, so they'd been voided out in their system. AND THAT THEY WERE NO GOOD. After making an angry call to the radio station, Angie decided, dammit, we're GOING to the fucking show! And, not only are we going, but we're sitting on the floor! Her trademark bad luck wasn't going to spoil her night, NOT THIS NIGHT, NOT WITH NKOTB! So, for my early Christmas gift/her share of the hotel cost, and with the hopes that the radio station would compensate her for at least the cost of the tickets she won, she bought both our tickets and off we went again, just a bit more pissed than excited this time.

The show was AWESOME, though. Our seats were great, we were to the left of the stage and only maybe thirty feet away (I made eye contact many times with The Kids, that's how close we were). Natasha Bedingfield opened for them, and she put on a pretty good show. I tell you what, I didn't realize how excited I was for the concert until the New Kids actually came out on stage. Within a snap of the fingers, I was ten again. And I wasn't the only one. The place was packed with screaming, giddy thirty-year-olds. They played all the old hits, with a few of their new songs peppered in. My favorite, of course, was "Please Don't Go Girl," belted out by my love, Joey, but Angie and I also thoroughly enjoyed Jordan's, "Baby I Believe in You," which he sang with his shirt open and next to a wind machine. As Angie would say, it was cheesetastic! They played for about two and a half hours. At the end of the show, I noticed they hadn't sang "Step by Step" or "Hangin' Tough." Sure enough, those were their encores!

At the end of "Hangin' Tough," the tall, dark-haired, gorgeous, skinny bitch a few rows down from us decided to get the band's attention by showing off her boobies. I'm sure she was after a backstage pass and a piece of Donnie's ass. I'll never know if she obtained her goals, but she did get their attention. Joey asked her what took her so long, while the rest of the guys pointed and slapped each other in the shoulders like, huh huh, BOOBS. Me, being in ten-year-old-girl mode, screeched at Angie, OH MY GOD, SHE'S SHOWING HER BOOBS!!! She can't do that! It's not a rock concert, this isn't Poison or Whitesnake or whatever crappy hair band was popular back then! It's funny because the majority of people around us had the same looks on their faces. It kind of cheapened my nostalgic moment, but, on the other hand, if I didn't have deflated mom boobs, maybe I'd have whipped mine out, too. Because, you know, the last time I was listening to "Hangin' Tough," I didn't have boobs. The one thing I really was pissed about, though, was that I didn't bring my camera. I do this at every concert. They say NO PICTURES! And then I get inside and EVERYONE has a damn camera but me. Of course, if I'd brought my camera, I'm sure I'd be the one and only person to have it confiscated. I took a few pictures with my cell phone, but they're absolute crap and basically worthless. I searched online for pictures, but can't find any! Boo!

So, despite Joey and Jordan practically begging Angie and me to come back to the bus with them, we were good girls and declined and were back at the hotel by 11:30. The boys were already in bed, so we stayed up for a few hours talking. You just can't go to a New Kids concert without ending the night with some girl talk with your BFF.

The next day, we did our usual Schaumburg shopping at IKEA and Woodfield Mall, and went to Chevy's for lunch. Asher was a very good boy the whole time, despite running on empty from a lack of napping. We were sad to leave Aunt GieGie so soon, and we were sad that we didn't spend a lick of time downtown, other than driving through to drop Angie off at home. Next time we go up there, maybe in the spring, we'll have to go to a museum or something touristy that we never do.

Long story short, to reference the title of my post, life sure has changed since I was ten, since I was last listening to The New Kids. I was so in love with them back then, I had like a trillion posters on my wall, I had a stuffed animal who I'd pray every night would turn into Jordan Knight. I would have killed to have gone to an NKOTB concert, but I was very young and we were poor. I remember when I was in fourth grade, staying up "late" one night to watch Disney Channel's big airing of one of their concerts. So, if nothing else, going to this concert on Friday was sort of like a gift to the little girl I was twenty years ago. Not to mention, it was great to go back in time with my best friend...I think it made us feel both really young and really old at the same time. Like, wow, twenty years feels like yesterday, but, wow, I'm old enough to know how twenty years feels.