It was 1997, I had fallen in love with Nick Carter, Brian Littrell, AJ McLean, Kevin Richardson, and Howie Dorough. At the ripe age of 8, I was mesmerized by the harmonies of these five boys and was hooked on their hit singles As Long As You Love Me and Quit Playin' Games With My Heart. Before everyone had high-speed internet in their homes, I would go to the library and view pictures of the boys using the now defunct browser Netscape, printing off my favorite photos for ten cents a piece and noting when the boys would be on national television.
However, my strict and traditional father did not think an elementary school student should be interested in boys or get caught up in chasing celebrities. Being a young and obedient girl, I privately adored the boys away from the eyes of my father. What my father didn't know is that I would have a partner in crime, my mother, who would purchase Millennium and Black and Blue on the first day of release for me while I was at school because I could not stand to see my boys fall behind in first-day record sales, especially not behind their then-rival *Nsync. She would let me buy one magazine, on special occasions, when the boys were on the cover or had a pin-up I wanted. My mom even took me to Barnes & Noble when the Backstreet Boys released a limited edition photobook because I thought all 100,000 copies would be sold out if I didn't request one right away. She did this with great caution, but would soon be captivated by the boys just as I was.
Because I was still young at the height of the Backstreet Boys' solid career, I did not dream of asking my parents to attend any of their concert tours, not only because I knew my father would say no, but because I knew my family was not in the position to purchase two tickets to go see them live. When I would pull open the Sunday paper at times, I would see the ads for their local shows whenever they came around town, wishing that that I could see and feel as one with them for one night. My mom knew me well enough to know that I desired to go but that I would never bring it up because I knew of our financial situation. So to compensate for it, she bought me the Backstreet Boys: Live In Orlando concert VHS. I would watch this over and over and over again, until the tape in the film actually ripped. (I ended up purchasing another VHS and years later, also buying the DVD -- for nostalgic purposes.)
Over the years, I have grown with the Backstreet Boys. I have stayed loyal to them as a fan, purchasing every record that they have released to date (not as loyally as I had when I was a youngster, but still getting them...eventually). Now that I am older and it's been over fifteen years since I first set my eyes on the first musical act I would ever fall for, they are a group I treasure. I say this because it enabled me to bond with my mom closely as a child and although my music library has grown to almost ten thousand songs, I never get sick of the Backstreet Boys. To this day, I am still amazed at how something I had encountered many years ago is still able to give me an unexplainable good feeling inside.
Now a little bit more about my mother. All my life, my mom has worked the graveyard shift. My whole life my mom has been home during the day so that whenever I or my brother needed anything, she would be there in an instant. If I forgot my gym shoes or lunch money, she'd drop it off for me, even lacking sleep. I wanted to take piano lessons when I was young because of the Backstreet Boys, she drove me once a week after school. If it was for me and my brother, my mom would do anything for us - lacking sleep, not eating what she wanted, or buying things for herself - so that my brother and I could have what we wanted. What you wouldn't expect hearing that she has worked the graveyard shift is that she is a college-educated woman, from a state institution I'd like to add. However, as an immigrant whose second language was English, my hard-working mother has been unable to get what the college degree had promised her. But she has never once, ever, complained about her life or the fact that she has sacrificed all this for her family, for our futures to be better.
Even now, as I apply to dental school again, she is supporting me, feeding me, and giving me a place to sleep. A college-educated, working girl. Now that I make a little money, most of which I am saving for dental school, I try to do good for my parents whenever I can. Give back little by little. Well, just last week I hear the Backstreet Boys are coming to town June 10, a Tuesday. I instantly think of the perfect person to go with. My mom. Though I still can't afford front row seats for the both of us, I can still pay for tickets to go see them. So I purchased two this past weekend at the box office, to avoid expensive ticketing fees (I get my frugality all from my economic mother).
I surprised her this evening, asking her if she could take June 10th off of work. She immediately tells me she can't because all the PTO has been distributed and shared FOR THE YEAR at her workplace. I might just add that this is a huge corporation that completely disgusts me now, even if it is on the smaller level where a problem lies. My mom quickly references her PTO sheet, two of the five sets of dates that have been completely denied with a blunt "NO" handwritten next to it, one "YES" but modified saying that only one of the three days can be taken off, and two "YES"s for days that are unimportant days in our family and avoid holidays. She tried to take the weekend of my birthday off, two of the days that was brutally denied.
I beat around the bush, asking if she could please ask her manager if she could ask to have one day off, not really expressing that I was trying to surprise her with a fun gift. My mom responds and tells me that days taken off in the summer have to be taken off by Sunday, Monday, Tuesday as a set, or by Wednesday, Thursday, Friday as a set. I got irritated both at my mother and the place where she works and began to get argumentative with her. We ended up bitterly ending the conversation with few words. She knew that her manager would woefully deny her request that she wasn't going to ask.
I just wanted to do something good for my mom and share ONE night with her to enjoy a TWO-HOUR long show. What kind of world do we live in that my mom can't even get a day off to spend a day with her daughter? How inconsiderate are these large corporations that disregard the lives of their employees? Now, I have two tickets to a show and the person I most want to go with, can't go with me...
I'm devastated, to say the least.
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