Musical mulligan

It doesn't matter if we're just going down the street or embarking on an hour-long drive. Each and every time we get into the car, Evan starts begging to hear the Sesame Street Count sing. "Ah, ah, ah," he screams over and over, imitating the way the Count laughs. His voice gets more and more frenzied until I acquiesce and turn on his favorite CD. (Good God. Am I really raising a child whose favorite CD is Sesame Street Sing Along Travel Songs?)

I have tried to compromise and offer musical alternatives. I have attempted to engage him in such convoluted discussions that he can't get a word in edgewise to ask for the song. I have even lied outright and pretended that the Count is "sleeping" and thus unable to perform for us (it's like parenting crack, this lying thing). Nothing works. Either the Count sings this or Evan screams like a banshee. It has come to the point that I actually dread getting in the car each morning. I'm all for happy children, but no mother in her right mind could truly be expected to listen to Ninety Nine Bats (In My Car Today) 52 times a day without going a little batty herself.

I've always been terribly amused by -- and more than a little bit disdainful of --the concept of a mulligan. Maybe it's the cynical golf widow in me, but the whole idea of just saying "I take it back; this never happened" has always struck me as just plain silly. As the days and weeks pass and Evan's obsession with terrible children's music simply does not wane, however, the idea is growing on me. I've reached the point that every single time I give in to Evan's musical demands, I find myself fantasizing about calling my very own mulligan. That moment when I first popped that damn Sesame Street CD into my car dashboard? Never happened. Here, kids, let's listen to some lovely classic rock. Would that it could be...