N*Sync and Oreos

Justin. Timberlake.

That one name has elicited the same amount of excitement from me for almost 16 years. Although, back in the day, I was more of a Backstreet Boys girl, N*Sync was still on high rotation in my house in 1997. After Sunday night's (entirely too brief) N*Sync reunion, I found myself looking back on my own evening with Justin, JC, Joey, Lance and Chris.

I don't remember the year (or maybe I do, but I am preserving my age as not to embarrass myself for being "too old" to have all this happen to me), but my parents, showing the full extent of their love, had gotten tickets to see N*Sync in concert in Nashville. I say they showed the full extent of their love because I can't imagine my parents were too excited about an evening with squealing girls and paying TicketMaster surcharges. And this was back in the day when you had to go to a TicketMaster booth to buy tickets (ours was at Kroger). So Mom actually waited in line to buy them.

My sister and I were so excited; I even helped her color a poster board-sized "I Heart Chris" sign. (She always liked the odd ones.) The day of the concert, we were jumping up and down in anticipation. We had our N*Sync T-shirts on and vocal chords ready for four hours of "squeeee!!!!! — plus we'd watched our "N*Sync N*Concert" VHS tape several times. All this pre-concert excitement manifested itself in a weird way for me, causing me to eat nearly an entire package of Double Stuf Oreos. (Alas, to have that metabolism again.) It royally screwed up my appetite though, and I only ate a bite or two of dinner before we headed out to the concert.

Giddy and giggly, my sister and I entered the arena packed full of equally eager tweens and their begrudging parent chaperones. The walls were covered with posters and T-shirts of the boys in various stages of squeaky-clean boy band seduction, retailing for the same price as your average two-bed, one-bath home. The parents waiting in line for one of those looked even more begrudging.

Once we got to our seats, the yellow, blue and purple lights swirled around the stage located on the floor of the arena. When the lights went down, the screams went up, but it was just the opening act — Tatyana Ali (the little sister from "Fresh Prince of Bel Air") trying her hand at being a second-rate, Disney-powered pop star. Throughout her performance, I could tell something wasn't quite right, my stomach churning and not with boy band excitement.

I sat down in my seat, breathing slowly to ease my stomach. And then I got that feeling. They say when it's love, you know. Same goes for when you're about to be sick.

And I knew.

I tapped my mom and frantically explained the situation. She rushed me out to find the nearest bathroom, which was right outside where our seats were, but the line was out the door. I think she could tell how little time we had left by how wide my eyes had gotten because she quickly grabbed my head and stuck it through the flap door of the nearest garbage can. There, I proceeded to revisit that pack of Oreos and regret the afternoon's binge. A janitor was also taking that moment to empty his dustpan into the trashcan's other side, but my mom was able to stop him from dumping all of the contents onto my head.

Pale faced and dusty headed, my mom and I found the first aid station, and she explained to the attendant what had happened, hoping they had some Pepto or something to help my stomach. Instead, he gave me a barf bag. So, Mom and I returned to our seats, and she explained the events of the lobby to Dad and Courtney while we waited for N*Sync to take the stage.

My nausea kept me from standing once they did, and I watched the concert play out on the jumbotron overhead. I couldn't help but think that I could've done the same thing at home — watch an N*Synce concert on TV. Dad wouldn't let me use the barf bag during the concert; he had me save it for the ride home (He wasn't being mean. He was just being daddy and worrying about the interior of his car). So, when the sickness hit again, Mom and I dashed back out the lobby. This time she pushed me to the front of the bathroom line, shouting, "She's going to be sick!" You've never seen children pulled away quicker and crowds part so fast.

I don't remember much else from the concert; I guess it wasn't as eventful as literally tossing my cookies, but I do remember the ride home as my sister stared at me from her seat waiting to see if I would blow again. It's become a running family joke, how I don't eat Oreos and couldn't contain my N*Sync excitement, receiving one of those clever family titles like "That Time Jennifer Threw up at an N*Sync Concert."

Looking back on that, it made me thankful to enjoy the musical stylings of JT from my own home with  the self control maturity brings, having not eaten and entire package of Oreos.