When Generations Collide

Being 40 is sometimes a little surreal, I find. Not that I can't believe I'm forty; I see the evidence in the mirror every day. I like to think that I'm aging well, but I see the fine lines beneath my eyes and a certain softness around my jawline that wasn't there ten years ago. I look down and see my grandmother's hands at the ends of my wrists. And I mourn the loss of resilience and bounce that once was the hallmark of my twenty something backside. Oh I lunge and I squat and I curtsy...but still my buttocks seem intent upon creeping down the backs of my now dimpled thighs.

But the things is...I don't FEEL forty. There is a mind-body disconnect that sometimes smacks me right upside the head; usually when I'm acting the age that I feel, which is somewhere between 18 and 25. Such a thing happened the other day, and to be perfectly honest, I'm still blushing over it.

I still like loud music you see. I like to get down, I like to shake my groove thang. And...in direct opposition to my moral, upstanding suburban Mom and housewife persona....I like songs with naughty lyrics. Mabye it's some kind of unconscious rebellion against my upbringing; which when it came to matters of sexuality, was conservative in the extreme. We didn't say "sex", we didn't allude to "sex" and we certainly didn't practice "sex".

When I was somewhere around 18, my boyfriend and I were caught in flagrante delicto by my parents, when they arrived home early from their restaurant, which they had closed early due to inclement weather. My mother was beside herself. She wanted to lecture me. She felt obligated to lecture me. She really tried to lecture me. But the impact of her words was drastically diminished by the fact that she could not bring herself to say the word "sex".

She referred to it as "that behavior." As in, "That behavior is not appropriate for a girl your age" and "That behavior will not be tolerated under this roof." and my favorite, "Girls who engage in that behavior often find themselves in trouble." She was a wonderful mother in so many ways but she was the reigning Queen Of Euphemism.

So anyway...I attribute my love of the ribald, the risque, the vulgar and the profane to my Mother, who did everything she could to achieve the opposite. Sorry Mom.

Thus, I have been absolutely delighted lately to have happened upon a number of songs that fit that bill quite nicely. I wasn't looking for naughty songs in particular (though I'll admit that I sometimes do); just something new to add to my ever growing "newer new" playlist. Stumbling upon them in the vast musical rabbit hole that is iTunes was a decidedly happy accident. The fact that my current favorite is sung by a young, handsome Latin Lover type, with smoldering black eyes and a body that has obviously been carefully cultivated to make legions of adoring female fans weep, drool and pledge their evelasting love...is just icing on the cake. As is the rather steamy video that accompanies it.

When I become enamored of a new song, I tend to play it over and over and over, until it has leached into the cellular matter of my brain and cemented every note, every lyric, every breathe before every phrase within. This is a habit that annoys my husband and children to no end. Fortunatley or unfortunately, depending upon one's point of view, this is not a habit I can readily indulge when it comes to the bawdier selections I so enjoy.

Which is why I recently found myself on a beautiful sunny day, high on an exercise rush, brimming with uncharacteristic optimism and good cheer, driving down the highway at breakneck speed in my big blue cliche, playing my naughty song playlist and relishing the freedom to sing all the racy words at the top of my lungs.

I know. I'm the epitome of class and good taste.

I decided to reward myself for burning calories by indulging in more calories, so I pulled into a local Starbuck's drivethrough, grateful for the fact that the driver's side window had spontaneously and inexplicably started functioning again the week before, so I wouldn't have to venture inside in my sweaty and dishevelled state.

I placed my order; grande skinny caramel latte; no whip, and patiently waited for the rather lengthy line of mini-vans to advance. 

When finally I pulled around to the service window, the shushing hydrolic doors parted to reveal a handsome twenty something male barista who was gazing at me with a peculiar but inscrutible expression on his wistfully whiskered face. I looked down at myself, wondering if somethinig was amiss or askew or on display. Nope, nothing.  I glanced back at the barista who now bore a look that was decidedly smirk-ish. Yes. He was definitely smirking at me. Puzzled, I handed over my debit card and accepted the proferred cup, mentally shrugging to myself.  He handed me the reciept and said "Have a nice evening Ma'am", which I thought was odd given the fact that it was high noon. And then he snickered, though it was the type of snicker that was obviously not meant to escape. How rude! I thought.

Pulling away, I placed my steaming drink in the cupholder; brushing my hand against the iPod, which was precariously balanced in the change tray, knocking it to the floor. As I bent to retrieve it, I noticed the Latin Lover's face gazing at me seductively from the rectangular screen. And that's when it hit me.

My naughty songs playlist was still playing at full volume. Oblivious to the fact that I was still within earshot of the speaker owing to the slow progress of the qeue, I had been belting out the saucy lyrics at top volume while waiting in line. Which really wouldn't have been a problem except that being as yet unaccustomed to having a fully functioning window once again, I had failed to roll it back up after placing my order.

Yes folks, I, forty something wife and mother of two, sedate suburban housewife and all around upstanding citizen, had been serenading the entire staff of Starbuck's with the following refrain:

"Please excuse me I don't mean to be rude, but tonight I'm fucking you. Whoa-oh-oh. Oh-whoa-oh. Oh."

Oh. The. Shame.

I felt my cheeks blazing as I was overcome by an odd, squirmy feeling that I hadn't experienced in a very long time. Being forty does have it's advantages, one of which is that not a lot discommodes a person of our age; we are not easily abashed or chagrined. But right then and there, the twenty something who resides in my soul and the forty something who commands my psyche collided into one with a cataclysmic onlsaught of horrified humiliation.

For the first time in a very long time, I was well and truly embarrassed.

I drove away trying to tell myself that I would likely never see that young man again, and even if I did, I would simply be another in the tide of faces that he sees every day. But the reassurances to myself were overridden by the creeping suspicion that I've now been branded into his awareness as the Saucy Song Singing Siren of Suburbia.

Sweet Weeping Jesus.

(WARNING: Explicit lyrics, nudity and sexual imagery)

Enrique Iglesias Ft. Ludacris - Tonight Im Fuckin You [Explicit Version] found on Pop