Your momma don't dance and your daddy don't rock n roll

I’m the proud father of two beautiful children. My daughter is seven and my son is five. I was driving with them in the car the other day, when a great hard edged heavy metal 80’s hair band song came on the radio. I couldn’t resist. I threw caution, self respect, and restraint out the drivers side window and did what every child of the eighties would do; now some songs require class, sophistication, and reflection, but there are some songs that reach down into your aged soul and stir up the passions, emotions, and adrenaline of an age long gone by. Some songs require extreme volume and a good portion of lunacy. This song begged for both. I reached for the volume knob of my 98 Saturn and turned right until my car was enveloped in the hard driving rift of a bunch of rebels who had spent their youth on over indulgence and who have became the subject of a sad rocumentary on VH1. Have you ever lost yourself in a song? Have you ever given yourself over fully to the music you love? I entered into this parallel universe with unbridled abandonment. It was me, the song I love, and the volume to make your ears bleed. The rest of the world momentarily faded into a rock and roll dream as fist were pumping, my head banging, and my melody challenged vocal cords pounded out a tune from an era long gone by. Like a cup of ice cold water down your back when you least expect it, I was awaken from my rock and roll fantasy by my screaming daughter trying to be heard over the magnitude of volume pouring forth from the rear cheap speakers of my 98 Saturn . Reality and common sense slapped me across my face as I reached for the volume knob. Turning sharply to the left, my daughter’s voice trailed down with the music as I had just played her some kind of a practical joke. Embarrassed; I asked her to repeat the words she was previously screaming from the top of her lungs. “Daddy that hurts my ears, can you please turn it down?” These words brought me back to my youth as this annoying mantra was the theme of my parent’s survival of my awkward teenage years. I looked in the rear view mirror to see my boy, wide eyed and mouth dropped. Their quite, respectful, conservative, Daddy had just become a crazy lunatic right in front of their innocent eyes. I had crossed over into a world that was foreign and strange to their perception of Daddy. How would I recover? How would I explain my peculiar behavior? How could I regain my dignity, self respect, and status as the dad they knew and loved? I confess right now that what I did next was rather pathetic. I uttered the four words that would make all right with the world; the words that every daddy knows will bring exuberance and joy into the heart of a child, and the four words that would help me save face;” Who would like ice-cream?