Rappers and Auctioneers

     I never see Haven anymore.  She's always off to some social event, sports training, or she's over at a girlfriend's house.  When she is home, she's tucked away in her room, behind closed doors.

     I've become a teenage widow.  You know how most women say they are football widows or hunting widows?  Well, I am a teenage widow.  The term, widow, implies that I am married to my teenager, and I AM.  I am more committed to her than I am to most anything in my life.  It's kind of like she's married to me, too, because she's not  talking to me.  I've been married before, and I know how marriage works.  Sometimes, I have the urge to cry and say, "See you when you're 25, after teenage season is over."  Until then, it is all I can do not to blackout.

     Lately, I've been listening to the music she likes through her door.  GOOD LORD, some of her choices in music are awful.  Haven is not set on a specific type of music, but has a propensity to blow her speakers to anything rap.

     I think it's cool how rappers jumble all of their words together to create a story.  It's fun to listen, too, when it is semi R-rated.  Some of my most favorite artists are rappers.  However, some of the stuff my daughter listens to makes me blush, and I have a great respect for the F word.

     Let me just say, rational or not,  that I have always associated rappers to auctioneers.  I imagine each and every one is an auctioneer.  I don't know why, I just do.  I like to believe that rappers crafted their style from mono-toned cadences.   I sometimes imagine myself beat boxing at a livestock sale auction.   It could happen, too, depending on my Coors Light intake, and if the spirit moves me.  However, I can't imagine beat boxing to any livestock auctioneer talking about breaking vaginas.  That would just be plain weird.  I am sure the actual history of rap is not as interesting as my association.  I refuse to look it up on Google.

     This summer, Haven begged her Aunt to take her to a rap concert.  THANK GOD my sister is incredibly smart and let her down nicely.  Wiz Khalifa is not exactly the way I want my daughter introduced to marijuana.  Which brings me to the time I was introduced to marijuana:    MR. HANK WILLIAMS JR.

     I was 14 years old when I was invited to see him in concert.  I was really excited, as it was only the second concert I had ever been to.  My friend, Brian, took me, along with his chaperone father.  We watched  close to 35 seconds of a great performance, when some adults next to us lit up a big joint.  I had no idea what they were doing or what in the world they were smoking.

     Shortly thereafter, the concert was over because Mr. Williams Jr. was so drunk, he fell off the stage.  My friend and I laughed uncontrollably for over an hour, and then devoured some sort of drive thru concoction.  I got a two-for-one lesson on substance abuse that day.

     So I started thinking about all of the concerts I've gone to, and realized that in some form or another, I was witness to some sort of illegal or inappropriate activity.  I saw a rockin' girl fight at a concert in 1993, I saw some lady snort lines of what I assume was not baking soda at another concert, and at another, a tour bus filled with smoke, and no, it was not on fire.  And this was all before I was 17 years old.  Some adults are really bad role models.

    I guess Haven cannot be protected from this forever, and maybe I shouldn't try.  I might even say yes to the next concert, that is, if she ever starts talking to me again...