I never took them seriously--but my daughters did. Scary, Ginger, Baby, Posh, and Sporty. When the Spice Girls were all the rage among my then elementary and middle school daughters and their friends, I didn't get it and tried pretty hard to ignore it.

The Spice Girls disappeared about the time my girls hit high school and except for the occasional siting of Posh with Becks, the Spice Girls seemed to vanish from the radar screen. My girls grew into adventurous, well-adjusted, engaging young women just like their friends, although, when the oldest one went to college I noticed that she took our battered VHS copy of Spice World.

Last fall, oldest daughter agonized over the purchase of a new computer. She had the money saved from her summer job, but just hated to part with it. She balanced her need for a new computer vs. her savings account through endless phone calls. When she finally decided to make the purchase, she called me three times before, during and after the transaction.

The morning after her new computer purchase, she woke up and checked her e-mail to find that she was eligible to purchase up to six tickets for the Spice Girl Reunion concert--did she hesitate, did she agonize over the purchase, did she do a risk/benefit analysis of the tickets vs. her savings account--Heck no! She clicked on purchase six tickets and entered her credit card number--spending almost as much as she had for the computer. She called me after a bowl of cereal and by then had already sold the five extra tickets.

So this weekend, the six of them-seniors in college--are in New York for the concert. They rented a car and drove up from D.C., are sharing one room in a hotel in Times Square and are going to have a weekend that they will never forget.

I think that I may have underestimated the Spice Girls all those years ago.