I Got Whammed

Driving home from Plymouth tonight, Lauren fiddled with my phone to put Christmas music on.

“You were not listening to Christmas music before?” she said.

“I had Graham in the car. I can only fight so many battles.”

“I see.”

In the backseat, Graham cleared his throat. “Dad, I think we have to agree that Vanilla Ice ripped off Queen in ‘Ice, Ice, Baby.’”

“Yeah,” I said. “And Wild Cherry on ‘Play that Funky Music.’”

“Vanilla Ice is the one white rapper who is worse than the best British rappers.”

I slowed down for traffic in front of me. “Easy, pal. ‘Ice, Ice, Baby’ is iconic.”

“Being iconic doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck.”

“No way it could be that iconic if it didn’t have something.”

“Daaaad, ‘All I Want Is You’ is iconic and it’s the bane of customer service reps everywhere.”

“Dude, come on. It’s a great song by a great artist. Overplayed, yes, but a great song.”

“Yeah? ‘Last Christmas’ is also iconic, Daaaad. What about that?”

I took a deep breath. “All right, you got me. That’s a terrible song, and when you hear it, you’ve been Whammed. Iconic.”