kids today
2 December 2008My dad recently quit being a lawyer and went back to teaching at a Catholic school, which is what he did Before I Was Born/ Before Anything Really Mattered, Anyway. Four months ago, my father’s work day consisted of kicking around an office with a group of lawyers he’s known for upwards of 30 years (when I went to his “retirement” party at the firm, dad was cleaning out his desk and found a picture from some lawyer picnic that I, as a small infant, made the intelligent decision to sleep through, and looking at it I realized that I have known some of my dad’s partners literally my entire life. Or, more accurately, they have known me, though that knowledge is based solely and frighteningly on the stories my dad tells about me at the office, all of which seem to revolve around my SAT scores or shoe collection, neither of which are anything to brag about, but he’s doing his best to remember to include me in conversations about his offspring even though I haven’t broken the sound barrier or signed a major record deal the way some people with my DNA have), and now my dad spends all of his time with 16 year olds, trying to teach them about world religion and The Law (though not at the same time). Older Brother Bud and I were a little worried about this, as dad has never seemed to like any people between the ages of 4 and 25 who don’t share his genetic material. When Dad told Bud about his massive career decision Bud replied “but that means you’ll have to be around kids all the time.” Bud has a way of Telling It Like It Is– he was one of the first people I told about my Epic Road Trip Plan for this past summer and when I called him and excitedly went “I think mom and I are going to drive across the country together this summer!” he paused for a second and went “that… sounds like a terrible idea.” Then I got indignant and asked why and he said “because you both hate driving, and neither of you has a sense of direction, and because you’ll kill each other.” All of which, I had to admit, were extremely valid points. We did it anyway and it turned out great, but whenever one of us is being delusional about our personal capacities, Bud is there to reel us in. The next time I decide I want to be a Rockette (I have this thought about once every 8 weeks or so), I’m going to call him and wait for the “but that would mean you have to know how to dance” response.
Dad was sold on this idea of going back to teach and do God’s Work, as he calls it, and seeing as how Dad’s been talking about making this change for, oh, let’s say, a decade or so, we decided to just let him roll with it and then laugh hysterically at the age/ culture/ education gap between him and the teenagers that God has selected for him to work on. He’s already given us some great material. Within two weeks he had a day where he came home completely astonished that someone had used the phrase “brain fart” to describe the mental lapse that they were having during a class discussion. The way my dad talked about the idiom Brain Fart you would have thought it was {any number of phrases I use for verbal shock value but won’t put on this website in case any of my young relatives are reading this. Stay in school, kids!}. But it seems that Brain Fart got my Dad over the proverbial culture shock gap and now he’s really enjoying interacting with his students. He recently put together what sounds like it could have been the most epically boring field trip ever for his law class and took them to hang out at the court house for a day, but since he has a bunch of Judge Friends from back when he had a real job, the kids had a great time. We asked if they watched any actual proceedings, and he said that they happened into a Dueling Grandmas case where two Grandmas started yelling at each other during their custody hearing. “It was great! One of them started screaming that the other one was in the Bloods or the Crips or something! My kids loved it!”
We had a family wedding this weekend, and during the pre-reception downtime we wound up having some beers and talking about William Shatner. I think this grew out of a conversation about Little Brother Peej’s band, which covers Common People every now and again, because every time someone mentions that song I have to talk about William Shatner. Then Katie Bud’s Wife commented that she respected William Shatner for embracing the fact that he’s a caricature of himself, and that it was proving to be great for his career, and I went “Yeah, like how Rick Astley showed up in the Macy’s parade this year.”
And my dad perked up from the other side of the table and went “Are you guys talking about Rickrolling?”
Oh, my god. My dad knows what rickrolling is. My dad, who wears sweatpants in public. My dad, who used to call me at work to ask how to operate our microwave.
After I explained what it was to the rest of the table and, perhaps, sang a little bit of Never Gonna Give You Up, Dad added to my explanation by informing us that part of the joke is that if you find yourself being rickrolled, you’re not allowed (honor system, I guess?) to close out of the internet window. You have to watch the entire video. I didn’t know about this part, but I’m proud of whoever came up with this rule.
It turns out that my dad’s school just had their Homecoming dance. One of the students was so pleased with his own performance on the dance floor that he started canvassing his classmates the next day to see if anyone had a video of him tearing it up at the dance, so that he could watch it over and over for years to come. And one of his buddies saw this wide open door, hit “reply all” and rickrolled him. And everyone at the school loved the story so much that now my dad, who once asked me “can you rewind on this thing?” after we had set up his new DVD player, knows what rickrolling is. And I think to myself… what a wonderful world.
2 Responses to “kids today”
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:18 am
I’m old and uncool, so I can’t really tell: does this count?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maqYI5gp3Ko
December 4th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
hahaha my classmae andrew rickrolled him…