REK

This weekend I went to the Robert Earl Keen concert in Linden, TX. Did I love it? Yes. Did I dance my little butt off? Yes. In the beginning of the night I had a blonde sitting in my lap and she danced and sang. Then she got a little tired and started complaining. She finally moaned and complained until she just passed out. No it wasn’t Lacy, it was my youngest child.

We took all of the kids to the concert mainly because they know all of the words to his songs. That and we didn’t have a babysitter. We had a wonderful time and he sounded just like he did years ago when I first heard him. It was a festival in downtown Texarkana when I sat for hours and laughed at his songs and commentary. The next time I heard he was coming into town I was fired up about seeing him in concert again for many different reasons.

One was that my second child was about to be 9 months old. I had weaned him, lost all my baby weight, and my hair had grown out again after I cut it shorter when he was born. On a side note, I got knocked up again 2 months later. Got to watch it when you bring sexy back. I was also so fired up because everyone in the family had just recovered from a stomach virus. It is never good to help a houseful of little and big people vomit all over your house, especially when one of them is three and cannot make it to the bathroom. I remember her throwing up all in my bed, hair, and on the wall one night.

I was ready to party! We were at a club in town which later burned down. We were all sitting around and I finally got a beer. The opening act was on stage and I took one nice long drink of that cold, cold beer. I made the comment that I was the only person in the family who had not been throwing up the past week. I decided to walk back to the bathroom before REK started to play.

I do not know what the onset of Cholera feels like, but I was damn sure my body was riddled with it by the time I made it into the bathroom. I am certainly not above throwing up in a bar bathroom. I have been known to do it before under completely different circumstances, but this was miserable. I was in a cold sweat and could not get up and away from that nasty assed toilet. I finally told someone to tell my husband I needed to go home – now.

He called his father to come get me. He stood out front with me until his father arrived (in his robe and house shoes). I was barfing by the front door like I was at a damn pledge party when I heard “that Buckin’ Song” being played onstage. To top it all off I was a preschool teacher at the local private school at the time. I don’t know what was worse. People who I knew assuming Miss Melanie was drunk off her ass before the concert even started and was throwing up outside a bar, or that NO ONE raised an eyebrow over it.

It was all worth it when I saw all my kids this weekend perk up when they heard Shery Was A Waitress at the Only Joint in Town.

Thanks for reading my post, and I hope you feel a little better about yourself.