Get This! by Becky Rickard

As I was looking back over the last two columns I'd written, I started thinking about how old I'm starting to sound. I can't believe how starting a "career" really changed my outlook on life.

I had an experience more than a week ago that helped me realize that I am not nearly as old as I'd like you to believe.

I went to the Family Values concert on Sunday, Oct. 10. When I bought the tickets, I was confident that the kids would beg me to buy beer for them or "bum" a smoke from me and then blame it on the girl sitting by them when they hop ped into their mothers' mini-vans waiting in front of the Kiel. I wasn't too far off. Plenty of kids "left their IDs at home and ran out of cigarettes." Of course, none of these kids admitted that they were still young enough for spankings. Furthermore, they never thanked me for allowing them to borrow my adulthood for the evening. Go figure.

I have been waiting to see this concert for a very long time and have taken a lot of ridicule for liking these bands. Keep in mind that most of the people who ridiculed me are Ricky Martin fans. Don't get me wrong, Ricky is very attractive in a clean-cut sort of preppy/yuppie world, but he's no Fred Durst (front man from Limp Bizkit).

I went to the concert thinking, "I'm probably the only person who has extravagant fantasies about Mr. Durst-with the exception of Carmen Electra who got to live the fantasy." There isn't a word in this language that can express how wrong I was. My fantasy was the same as every 12- to 17-year-old girl in the Kiel that night.

It didn't take me very long to realize that just because I have a career, bills and a fair amount of responsibility, I'm still young. In fact, I realized that I'm at the perfect age to appreciate my youth. I realize that I don't really want to get older, but I accept that I can't escape it. However, I'd never want to be 17 again.

At first, I was intimidated by the youth of the girls screaming for my fantasy man. Later I had an epiphany. What good is youth if you can't appreciate it? I didn't appreciate youth when I was 17 because I couldn't wait to vote and not have a curfew. Now that I'm a little older, I recognize that I still have the passion of those high-pitched, perky, rock star groupies. I also have enough wisdom to be able to laugh at my fantasy rather than stand on the top of my chair frantically waving while telling my friends that "he looked right at me."

I'm pretty sure that my fantasy was much different than the pre-pubescent girls around me, but, technically, it's all the same because none of it will ever happen. There is no amount of screaming, waving, and crying that will make our fantasies a reality.

I've decided to have a new fantasy. Instead of practicing to bear Mr. Durst's children, I think I'd much rather have him tattoo me. I'm old enough to make that decision and young enough to blame it on youth. I've got the spot picked out Fred, when are you available? That's my view from the outside in.