Almost spitting with indignation, she told her daughter “That’s what he called out. Right after we had such a nice talk. Right in front of everyone! I woulda went back, hit him upside the head. Cept my arthritis was actin up, you know how it gets.”
The 30 year old laughed, “Momma, he didn’t mean F A T fat. He said phat… P H A T. That’s good! He was paying you a big compliment.” Momma looked at her child, puzzled, “He was?”
Upon reaching a certain age, older adults need translators. Every man and woman over 50 needs help to understand advertisements for the latest gadgets, much of the dialog on cable channels and most of what’s on the internet. We all regularly call upon a teenager or friendly young adult to interpret the world around us.
Naturally, we try to repay the favors by sharing the benefit of years of experience with our ‘go to’ interpreters. Just the other day I was at my sister’s house while my teenage nephew was thinking about getting some pizza. Not seeing a Yellow Pages lying around I piped up, “if only I had my laptop with me - by the way you should get one, they’re real handy; you can carry them around and use them at some coffee houses - I could do a search and probably find out the number of a decent joint not too far away.”
My nephew opened up his hand, shows me this little gizmo. It’s about the size and thickness of a single 3x5 index card. Later he told me it was the new OrangeIMacSEplatinum5G. On it, I see this pretty blonde in a skimpy pink thing walking on a beach. “That’s my girlfriend. On vacation in Jamaica. Live.” he says. I can hear the sound of waves lapping at her feet.
While I’m trying to absorb this, my nephew touches a button on the gizmo, then moves a couple things around on the side of the screen with his finger. I can still see his girlfriend, now diving into the surf. Two seconds later he tells me, “There’s the best cheese crust, deep dish, triple pepperoni, garlic flavored pie in town coming out of the oven right now. The delivery guy is named Joe. He drives a dual exhaust, flame red Ford Edge Sport. He’ll be here in 9 minutes, and expects a $3.00 tip.”
Meanwhile, back at home, my wife is trying to share the fruits of her wisdom with her daughter Kelli. “See, these are hand picked Bartlett’s. Notice the color, and see how the skin indents just so when I squeeze… that means it’s perfectly ripe. I just know that you and Giselle will love them.” Kelli stares at the bag of pears, looks at her mother and says, “Giselle is only 10; she doesn’t even know what those are. Only old people eat pears.”
Okay, maybe the youngsters don’t need what we can offer in exchange for their translating services. And maybe our eyes do glaze over when told someone just got buzzed, twittered or tweeted. Fortunately, we can still communicate our own thoughts. After all we do try to remain hip… ummmmm, “mod”… “with it”… we’re “down.” You know what I mean. Right?
PawPawJack©September 20, 2010
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