When I was young...And Stupid

We tend to make similar mistakes when we are too young to be cool as well as when were to old. Such a large part of the human experience at least in America is trying to be cool. Kids will pick up on things from older brothers, sisters and even adults and adopt that as their own sense of cool. How else can you explain Goth Elementary schoolers? Inevitably they end up NOT getting it and what ever slang or pop culture reference they are attempting to interject they end up misusing, sounding like a total idiot to anyone who is savy enough to figure it out. Like the kindergartener who keeps saying Some-of-a-bitch or for even more evidence of this ask me about the "You wanna Blowjob?!" story.
Today I was teaching a math class and told the kids to open up their books to page 320 (Three-twenty) This was accompanied by a smattering of giggles, some whispering and then some more giggles. This is usually the kind of behavior that comes after the mention of sperm whale or something along those lines so this time I was left scratching my head. So I pulled one of the kids aside and asked what was the big deal about 3-20? They looked at me a bit freaked out and said uhh... You know like marijuana. Wow 50cent is gonna have to try a lot harder, to get through to these kids.
This phenomenon is not exclusive to the elementary/middle school set it has been witnessed by anyone who has worked in any hip retail clothing establishment and had a button down 3o and up come in to get an outfit for "Going to the club with some friends" You know the guy who is way into whatever look is popular at the time but is WAY WAY overdoing it, or the middle aged guy in the office who way tossing around " For shizzle my nizzle" not realizing that he was calling Phil from accounts payable the "N"-word. There are two shining examples of this in my building. One the Gym teacher who dresses in head to toe in shady wear, white guy late 30's, and the English teacher who wears the tight miniskirts and bows in her hair, PUSHING 60. Dude. Being cool is easy there are men and women that are well into they're 70's who have kept their cool.
Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Lauren Bacall,and Loretta Lynn JOHNNY F-ing CASH!
Cool not hip.
Miles Davis knew it and Sammy Davis didn't THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING. The window for being hip is similar to that of learning a foreign language it only stays open for so long and then it becomes more and more difficult until it eventually becomes impossible.