Not So Hip

I've always thought I was a pretty cool mom. I listen to current music, I play video games (the Wii and Nintendo 64, but those are cool, right?), I'm somewhat computer literate, I know what fashions are popular and I understand text speak abbreviations (lol, omg, brb), so I must be pretty hip. Or so I thought. This morning, my son broke the news to me that I'm not entirely up to date.

His car is in the repair shop (yep, the one we just bought him) so I'll need to pick him up from school after track practice today. Here's how the conversation that ended my illusion of "Cool Mom" went:

"Call me after practice is over and I'll come and pick you
up."

"I forgot to charge my cell phone last night, but if it's dead, I'm sure I
can borrow someone else's phone."

"Or you could use the pay phone at school. Do you have some
change with you?"

There was no verbal response for a minute, only laughter.

"Pay phone? Mom, they don't have pay phones in school."

"They don't?"

"No, not since 1985!"

"Well, I graduated from high school in 1986 and we had pay phones in the
lobby."

"Ok, well, since the invention of cell phones they have not had pay
phones in school."

This was followed by more laughter. Have I really gotten so out of touch that I missed the passing of pay phones? Cell phones are not new to me, I've had one for years. We don't even have a home phone anymore because we weren't using it. But I still thought the schools had pay phones. They don't allow the kids to use their cell phones during the school day so I thought they kept the pay phones.

I've been thinking about it since he left, and remembering all the not-so-hip things people said to me when I was a teenager. The things that made me laugh.

• Like the time I was babysitting for a neighbor. Before they left, the baby's grandfather asked me "Whatever happened to that singer called Blondie? She could really rock and roll." He was in his 60's and it sounded so out of touch. Blondie hadn't had a hit in 5 or 6 years at the time.
• Or the time one of my high school teachers was singing "Raspberry Beret" while we were doing our classwork.
• Or the time my grandpa asked my brother about the Emerson, Lake and Palmer t-shirt he was wearing. "Where is Emerson Lake?" he wanted to know.
• Or the time a friend's mom referred to jeans as dungarees.
• Or the time my grandma wanted to know who Alice Cooper was and if "she" was a good singer.

Have I become one of these people? Does it matter that I thought the Jonas Brothers Band was a Disney show and not a real band? Should I worry that I still haven't figured out the difference between goth and emo? And what about the time my son told me he was going to buy a beanie (a knit hat) and I asked him why he wanted a beanie baby? Is it ok that I still like to talk like Snoop Dog once in a while even though it's not cool anymore?

Shizzle!


~Note~ I'll be back later with a Friday Night Drink Demo! See you then!