Last Monday, my family bonded to music of the Beatles.
I picked up my daughters from school and noticed they were a little hyperactive.
I smiled and laughed because I remember when I was in school and that when school let out, my friends and I had a bunch of bundled-up energy that needed some place to go.
Well, picture "Ricochet Rabbit," "Gremlins" and anything with Jim Carrey all rolled into one, packed into a small, two-door Nissan Sentra.
"Hey, kids," I said in my soothing fatherly voice. "I think we need to be mellow while I drive home."
"OK!" they both screamed, not unlike Alvin the Chipmunk.
Once everyone was in the car, we started on our journey home. And a journey it was — 700 East was filled with flashing lights. But it wasn't from construction. All the traffic lights from 200 South to 800 South were malfunctioning.
Usually it takes a couple of minutes to get from 200 South to 1300 South. On Monday at 4:15 p.m., it took 15 minutes.
My daughters, ages 4 and 7, were bouncing off the car interior. They were laughing, screaming, clapping, laughing, screaming, clapping, laughing, screaming, clapping . . . and laughing.
I wondered what I could do to calm them down because a mild ache had crept into my left temple.
"Hey, guys, it's time to mellow out," I said again in my soothing fatherly voice.
They just laughed at me.
"I mean it; let's try to quiet down a bit."
They laughed at me again.
I looked down and saw a CD that they liked. "Hey, if you're quiet, you'll be able to hear some music," I said. "Shhhh. Ricky Martin is going to sing you guys a love song."
As I put the CD in the player, my wife, Tammy, was laughing almost as hard as the kids.
"What?" I said.
"You're probably the only father who wants Ricky Martin to sing your daughters a love song," she said.
She was right, of course.
But at least I put on the song "Come to Me," rather than one of those risque Martin ditties.
I thought a new song might catch their attention.
What a wasted effort.
Neither the girls nor I heard the song.
There was still too much screaming, laughing, clapping, screaming, laughing and clapping in the car.
I looked around frantically because that ache had turned into a sharp pulsing pain that not only dug into my left temple but was starting to focus its attack right between my eyes.
Then I found it! Like a red ray of sunshine bursting through a dark, stormy sky, there it was — the Beatles "1" album.
I quickly ejected Ricky and asked Tammy to put the Beatles disc into the player and play track No. 15 — "Yellow Submarine."
"The kids love this song," I thought to myself. Maybe too much.
I thought it would mellow them out, but I was so wrong.
The song actually channeled the kinetic energy in the back seat into a hyper-silly sing-a-long.
"We all live in a yellow submarine, cha-cha," the kids began chanting at the top of their lungs. "Yellow submarine, cha-cha. Yellow submarine, cha-cha."
With every "cha-cha," they would clap their little hands as hard as they could.
"We all live in a yellow submarine, cha-cha, ow!" was one of their interjections.
Then they laughed and screamed some more.
But somehow, my headache had dulled, and before long, my wife and I began singing with them.
E-mail: scott@desnews.com