Psst...Come 'ere and I'll tell ya a secret...

I may be a conservative homeschool mom by day, but every other Friday night after delivering my son to his Dad, when I'm all alone in the car (the only time I'm ever alone in the car) I turn into... a car headbanger. It's true, I tune to the local classic rock station, crank the sound up and rock out singing badly at the top of my lungs. I can do a mean air guitar and a wicked drum solo.

Tonight's favorite, George Thorogood

I walked forty-seven miles of barbed wire, I got a cobra snake for a necktie
A brand new house on the road side, and it's made out of rattlesnake hide
Got a band new chimney put on top, and it's made out of human skull
Come on take a little walk with me child, tell me who do you love?
Who do you love?
Who do you love?

It all started out back when I was a teen. My BFF, Karen and I would take off in true Thelma & Louise style (the early part of the movie, we never killed anybody) in my Dad's big old Oldsmobile. We used soda bottles, hairbrushes and whatever else we could find for microphones and guitars, with not a care in the world as to who saw us or what they thought of it.

Then I married and had kids and had to start acting like a responsible adult. I tried, but you know it's hard. So about the time my daughter was a preteen I occasionally would have these compulsions to crank the radio and do my best Angus Young impersonation. Particularly as we were driving through our small town where not only does everybody know your name, they know what you drive. Watching her hand cover her face and her body slink down into the seat as far as it would go without sliding out of the seatbelt was highly amusing. Now, when I do it to my son I just get a blank stare or rolling eyes that say "Is that really necessary?".

By and by my daughter got used to my little outbursts. In fact, there came a day when she threw in the towel and decided if she couldn't beat me, she'd join me. We'd make sure we really cranked it and rolled the windows down while we drove through town.

I've since lost touch with both of my car headbanging buddies. Miss those goofballs.