I may talk tough about my age. I may be in my prime. But I'm definitely feeling dated when it comes to the Generation Gap between my sister, Aubree, and myself. Fifteen years and one month separates us. I was an 80s child--I grew up with the Care Bears; the Gummi Bears; He-Man and She-Ra, (Skeletor); Strawberry Shortcake; Madonna; Bon Jovi; big hair and leg warmers; big ghetto blasters and neon colors... On the other hand, she's definitely a child of the 21^st Century. She grew up on (and still loves) Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen movies; she had a crush on the somebody Michael Murray kid from One Tree Hill, and oh! she went through a Buffy, the Vampire Slayer stage. She likes rap music, some of the new country and the er...new dance moves some kids and music stars are so into right now that tend to be toward the suggestive side.

What really makes me feel dated is the slang nowadays. When I was a kid still, gay meant "happy or joyous." People even named their daughters Gay. Now it's a term for an alternative lifestyle, for people who are attracted to others of the same sex. For my sister and kids her age, however, it's a derogatory term, which I hate the thought of. Gay to them means "lame" or "totally stupid." ("That's so gay you can't go to the party!")

Needless to say, Gay as a girl's name has gone the way of the evolution of lingo.

White trash is another term Aubree's generation is changing and misusing. Of course, white trash means to me someone in the lower class bracket, with little education, little or no people skills whatsoever, who lives in the slums and who has no ambitions in life. On the other hand, to them white trash means "old, decrepit and in bad condition." She had the ignorance to use the term in conjunction with my van. It's on its last leg: it stalls on you if you idle too long or just because, the doors for the ramp's connection is faulty, there's a clunking sound in the rear when you break as if something's loose, the turning signals don't work and there's no air conditioning. In its defense it's 22-years-old! And we've put it through the paces over the years; it's been to St. George, Utah, to Albequerque, NM and to Tejas (Texas). Now we don't dare take it beyond I.F.

The last word she misuses that got to me today is hick. She called my birth father one simply because of his Southern drawl and flair for storytelling. Excuse me? Last time I checked, hick meant a redneck, someone who Jeff Foxworthy made himself famous for by telling all the true, yet exaggerated jokes about, someone who Larry the Cable Guy totally epitomizes! Apparently, to Aubree, a hick is anyone from the South who happens to tell an outrageous or odd story about the people they know. Or someone who lives in the South.

Daddy may have the Texas drawl, he may have Southern charm and a Southern flair for storytelling, but *snorts and hems* he by no means is--a--hick! He's educated, he's well-traveled, he's ambitious and he's a workaholic rice miller. It irks me no end when a person does not know the meaning of certain words or terms, yet uses them anyway, telling you he/she has his/her own meaning for them.

I guess I can add this to my list of pet peeves.

And, if indeed the young generation of today's teenagers are changing the lingo again, heaven help our language, because they are massacring it. And shame on us for not teaching them the correct meaning of adult words.

I feel so dated.

moon phase