My Twice Baked Potato

Every parent secretly hopes that their child will share an interest-my secret hope was 80s Rock.

“Anus, who?! Are you frickin’ kidding me?!”

I knew he heard me. He was sporting quite a grin.

“No. Angus. Angus Young.”

I had to smirk because back in the day, we might have said “anus” a few times ourselves as a joke.

I tried to be convincing, “Hear that beat? That’s the head banging beat.” I demonstrated what proper head banging was supposed to look like.

“Oh god. Please stop.”

Okay, it is a bit different when you are my age, still in pjs, and sporting bed head hair.

“Listen to the drums and the guitar!”

Although I am terrible at air guitar, I didn’t think I was horrible with air drums.”

He turns quickly. “I can’t take you seriously like that…you’re really not good.”

As I do my best to teach my own music appreciation class, we are sitting side by side and playing MineCraft.

“Can you appreciate that I used to like things just as much as you like Minecraft when I was your age?”

The idea seems mind-blowing to him.

“Let’s try a little Journey…”

He rolls his eyes as I ask him to find Wheels In The Sky on YouTube. He stalls by spelling every word phonetically and somehow, it still pops up.

Memories of Skate King and hanging with neighborhood friends swirl around ACDC, Journey, Styx, Scorpions, etcetera.

“Come on…you like it, don’t you?”

I smile and nudge him.

“I’ll admit…I don’t hate this one.”

I shouldn’t have done it, but I was compelled to pick up his Pez dispenser as my microphone. I dramatically clutched it with two hands and belt the Scorpion lyrics in my son’s direction.

“Seriously. You took it too far now.”

“Don’t you mean, I shook it all night long?”

He rolled his eyes.

“Please put your fake microphone down. It’s Pezing me off.”

Obviously, we aren’t the only parent and child who have differing music taste. I remember my mom’s initial reactions to Hells Bells played loudly while I cleaned my room. It grew on her.

Today’s attempt is just the beginning of my plan.

Ten minutes later he was putting his laundry away. He was half way up the stairs before he stopped and looked at me.

“You know I didn’t really hate all of that.”

I was celebrating inside.

“That’s cool because there’s so much more to hear!”

I’m already looking forward to our next music appreciation class.