Friday, July 6, 2012

Who Let This Song (And Subsequent Crazy Memory) Out?, A Flashback by Allison

It may be shocking (it is more horrifying than shocking to me) that I have several life stories involving that terrible, lame, cheesy, idiotic "Who Let The Dogs Out" song that was all over the place in the mid 90's and then infiltrated all sporting events ever, but it is true.

And today, I heard someone blasting this song out of their car, and my first thought was "Really, that is still on the radio?" and then my mind wandered (as it does) to a particularly silly memory that includes this song.

Background: after college, I did a cross-country road trip with two of my bestest friends from ever, LH and LT (I seriously won the friend lottery), and this is a trip we planned with no Internets or GPS because we were Pioneers, we had Triple A maps and about 300 dollars.

It was truly one of those transformative (at least for me), magical, hysterical, and weird life events you carry with you in your pocket forever.

We each got to pick out one place we wanted to visit (LH: Graceland, LT: Meteor hole in Arizona, Me: Ima Hogg's House in Texas - because I felt so terrible for her that her dad named her that and gave her a pink house that I wanted to somehow acknowledge the fact that she was cool and turned it into art museum, plus pink house!) and set off on our way.

The three of us are completely unprepared lunatics with two mix tapes and some random books on tape and for extra entertainment,
(otherwise known as  blackmailing them to rewind tape to hear "So Cruel" by U2 as I was really into that song then)
I sang sorority songs and camp songs.
(Note: That is very good blackmail strategy should you ever need to employ it).

This is a long leadup to the "Who Let the Dogs Out" thing, but I could not in good conscience jump right in without setting it up properly.

I take my ramblings seriously.

We road trip (I think I have a month's worth of posts on this trip, it was badass) and are in Los Angeles at some point, and though we tried to avoid cheesy tourist traps except for the ones we wanted to see so we decided they weren't actually cheesy or if they were, we were embracing the cheese (Example: we ate jelly doughnuts in front of Graceland).

In LA, we go to Universal Studios.
I am thinking someone gave us tickets (various relatives threw stuff like restaurant coupons and unused vouchers at us so we would not starve or become crackheads) because we could not afford those on our itty bitty budget
(Which? Get this, our money was in TRAVELERS CHECKS!!! Pioneers.)

 As we are roaming around the theme park, LH and LT eating those churro things
(giant fried sticks of dough with cinnamon? I do not know, am not fan)
we can overhear some music coming out of a big theater where some sort of show is happening.

(Note: These are the shows otherwise known as: Parents Want To Sit Down And It Is Hot Out).

LT looks at me, and says, "Are they singing that right?"
Because show people had turned "Who Let The Dogs Out" into, I am not making this up, "Children, Where The Booty At?" (whoop, there it is.)

 My first thought was, did they end a sentence with "at?"

 Because that is a preposition and our sixth grade English teacher terrorized us into NEVER ending a sentence with a preposition if we could help it, and if anyone asked her a question such as "where is it at?" she would burst into flames, say "Behind the T, is where it's AT, don't end a sentence with a preposition.

So I had early waterboard type drilling of preposition laws, and I hear "at" and think LT is having flashbacks to sixth grade.

 But then I realize LT is pointing out the awful fact that the lyrics say "children where the booty at?" and that is gross and weird and what did they want the kids to do in response and I am glad I can't see what happens in the audience after the singers ask about the children and the booty, yuk.

And note:This is before any of us on our Magical Mystery Tour of Delights had kids, only LT had even met the person with whom she would eventually have (awesome) kids.
(Also note: See how carefully I did not end in preposition?
I am totally still scared of that teacher popping up and yelling at me, she also forced us to learn calligraphy which is mean and weird).


We did not know the rules on what is or is not appropriate for kids at this stage in our lives, but even our uninformed minds knew that was a really tacky song, and also, let's stand here and listen to more to see what else they do.

This was not a good idea, as it somehow made this guy who worked for the park dressed up as Conan the Barbarian (or Tarzan, I am not sure, but the outfit is similar-ish in its lack of pieces of clothing) who was lingering around that area posing for photos with people
(People, why? Why do you want a picture with that guy?
I get Disney and the characters and princesses, for kids "of any age", but this is just cheesy dude who totally may have been Maverick or Malibu from my post a while ago, i.e. super cheesy guy who thinks he is going to hook up but is actually not going to hook up.)


So Conan sees us standing around (listening for more terrible song manglings and all) and thinks, these girls totally want to hook up with me.

(Again, note: NOT the case, at all, you are dude at park in some sort of silly half-outfit, we are having our own fun time and you are not as cute as you think you are). 

So he saunters over, all suave-like (in a theme park dressed as Conan with 1990's era Oompa Loompa spray tan sweating off of him) to chat us up, and LT and LH look at me like, "Dude, we have our churros here to enjoy, you deal with him."


So I try various ways to get him to go away, and I have a bag of "go away, shoo, yuk, leave" tricks up my sleeve, but this guy is persistent like extremely challenged dog who runs into sliding glass door four billion times and never gets the hint.

 (Note to Universal Studios: do not hire creepy guys)

He will not go away, he is somehow sure this is all going to go his way, and finally LT, genius, gets out her camera and takes his picture.

And like Pavlov's Dog, he gets all "Ooh, pictures of me! Surely I will get a job on Melrose Place."

And LT has him go in the little play area/cave thing (also known as Parents Are Hot And Want To Sit Down) and she has him do a bunch of goofy and idiotic stuff on children's play area, and he poses, like a total fool.

And while he is fantasizing about guest appearance on a soap opera, we hustle off fast, but Conan starts up with the following as if we have a Gross Costume Guy Bag that we are going to put him in and carry him away, and we duck into the E.T. ride to just break free.


And that is where my mind went today as I heard that song fleetingly playing on someone's radio.

So of course all this remembering, plus now writing about it, has me way late on my tea run, which is why I really really want  an intern.