Thursday, October 20, 2005

On the highway to the senior-citizens' retirement community

More junior high: In sixth grade, I had this rocker chick school-bus driver. She propped a crummy boom box next to the accordion-door-opening handle and we all listened to the local hard RAWK!! station while being hauled to and fro. And every single morning during the worst of rush hour, the DJs would put on AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" to underscore the a.m. commute.

As an impressionable 11-year-old, I thought this was coooooool. They rocked! They said a swear! H-E-double toothpicks, right there on the radio, a whole bunch of times...could you even do that? Well, they up and did, those AC/DC dudes. I felt a certain solidarity with the tough older kids on the bus, and with the legions of grown-ups grinding along the highways, off to toil at their jobs. Which were LIKE HELL--yeah, I got it. Workin' for The Man, but secretly telling him off through the magic of AC/DC. Aw, yeah.

So when I stumbled across "Highway to Hell" during today's morning commute, naturally I cranked it. I growled and screeched along with the chorus, banged my head ever so subtly...filaments of gray roots creeping out of my tasteful barrette, I'm sure. Hey, fellas, you do not know just how hard the thirtysomething businesswoman in the 1996 Hyundai is RAWKIN'. I'm on the highway to NerdCo! With a quick stop at the Starbucks! Yeeeeaaaaaah.

Then I thought, That...was a quarter-century ago.

Then I drove myself directly to The Home, to reserve a bed and a seat at the bridge tournament.

Hell!

2 comments:

Gael Fashingbauer Cooper said...

Considering where you and I work, I prefer this parody.

Anonymous said...

huh. we just got disco tunes from our busdriver's boombox. a few years later, on the 5 am swimteam bus, we did get to make regular stops at the westernco donut shop though. Now THAT was cool!