Culture Shocking the Elderly

I have the mouth of a truck driver. Swearing and cursing comes quite naturally to me. On the one hand, I recognize that most often, cursing is the last resort of the uncreative. You see, when desperately searching for the appropriate adjective, the uncreative person simply applies fuck in some form to emphasize his statement. “What a fucking storm!” Or, “Fuck! What a storm.” Sometime even in the middle of a word, “Un-Fucking-Believeable storm!”

But other times the curse words are necessary to construct the appropriate meaning or paint a picture of your true feelings. “The boss just blew through here on a wild shit-storm.” Or, “Hey dickwad, cut the crap or fuck off.”

And goddammit! Sometimes it just feels good to let it fly, particularly if someone is being a fucknut.

Most people learned these words from other kids, often older kids, and upon trying them out at home, found they shocked the parents who thought for sure they raised better kids than that. “Where did you hear words like that?!” The shocked parents always asked.

Growing up in my house, it was never a question. No one had to ask, where did you hear words like that? The answer was always obvious:

My Mother.

I learned every swear word and inappropriate word combination from good old mom. With her deep Brooklyn accent, I was privy to colorful language unrivaled by any elementary school kid. If it wasn’t directed at me (whaddayou got shitforbrains? You’d forget you fucking head if it wasn’t attached), then it was directed at fellow motorists on the friendly highway known as the Long Island Expressway (Jesus Christ! Could you go any slower? You fucking moron!). At 5’2” and petite, you’d never expect this woman to race up to a dump trucker, force him to pull over, and bitch him out for flying debris cracking her windshield. She’s lucky she didn’t get shot.

At the ripe old age of three I uttered my first swear words. Sitting in my car seat strapped in the back of the station wagon, I sat and listened as my mother bitched out another motorist.

“Son of bitch cut me off,” she said.

“Ma, that guy’s a fucking asshole.”

My mother was taken aback. “Michael, that’s a very bad word, you should never say that word!” She exclaimed from the front seat while flipping off someone.

Of course I was sorry and ashamed; I hadn’t realized I had done anything wrong. “I’m sorry Ma, I won’t do it again. That guy’s a fucking moron.”

I had no idea which ones were good words, and which ones were bad words. Frankly I still don’t.

Now at the age of 32, I believed that I had heard the full gamut of curse words at my mother’s disposal. At the age of 55 she’s mellowed somewhat, and the street has all but been taken out of her as they (my father and her) attained some yuppie success in the 80s and carried it right through to today. Living in their McMansion with their perfect green lawn they embody all that you’ve come to expect from the Me Generation; classic elegance, refined tastes, intellectual conversation, the whole package.

So you can imagine my surprise when surrounded by all the accoutrements of the finer life, deep in conversation about the nature of education and the pros and cons of their state public school system as compared to our state public school system, she declares,

“It’s a suck-ass system.”

I guess you can take the girl out of Brooklyn but you can’t take the Brooklyn out of the girl. It’s not the words themselves that gave me pause. I’ve heard her say some thing “sucks”, and I’ve hear her say, “Get your ass in here,” many times in the past. But this “suck-ass” was decidedly modern, hip even. Certainly not something that was said in her day.

Somehow my 55 year old, hippie turned yuppie, turned grandma (that’s right she’s got three grandchildren), somehow she’s able to keep up on modern cursing.

When I’m her age, I can only hope that I show that much dedication to keeping up with my native language.

Flex and Straighten

I love and hate marketing at the same time. I love that it is the only place where a writer can use language incorrectly, spell things creatively, make up words, and ultimately say nothing or the same thing over and over with as many different words as possible.

I hate it for the same reasons, especially when I'm trying to shop for something and I have to sift through the BS to try and figure out what makes one model better than another or worth paying for at all.

Of course it's easy when you are reading marketing material for things that have nowhere left to advance and everyone knows it. Take the toothbrush for instance. There is no new technology going into the manual toothbrush, and yet their marketing would have you believe that NASA could learn a lot from Oral-B engineers. They come up with "Revolutionary MicroPulse bristles that pivot and pulse to penetrate deep between teeth."

Are they serious?

It turns out, they are just as serious about that as they are about "cross action proprietary CrissCross bristles positioned in opposite directions designed to flex and straighten."

Flex AND straighten! Well I hope so, if it didn't straighten it wouldn't make for a very good brush would it? It would be more like a tooth mop. As far as I know, toothbrushes have been flexing and straightening for more years than I've been around, and they didn't require any extra design or engineering to do it.

But that's not all, they have "powertip bristles," bristle tips cut straight or angled, long ones surrounding short ones, short ones surrounding long ones, thicker ones around thin ones, thin ones around thick ones, bristles angled forward, backward, both direction, placed in rows or circles...

And then there's head shape, like split heads, solid heads, oval, trapezoids, and squares. And finally the handle, like the non-slip universal thumb grip for exceptional control. I hadn't realized control was an issue. Is my toothbrush in danger of careening out of control while I brush? Will it crash into teeth I don't intend to brush? Or maybe it would fly out of my hand and either down my throat or onto the bathroom floor. Clearly control is something I would want. But what if I get one of your other brushes that doesn't advertise this feature?

Obviously, they are full of it. The toothbrush has seen the limit of its potential. If it was that highly engineered they wouldn't give them away at the dentist.

But then there is the opposite end of the spectrum; the variety of products that do require some level of engineering, but you can't really see it working, so they have to explain it to you. Their marketing material is just as fraught with techno babble, but unlike the toothbrush it's harder to determine the truth from the bull.

Take for instance snowboarding equipment. Are they finely engineered snow riding machines or plastic straps attached to wooden boards with wax on the bottom? My guess is the answer lies somewhere in between, but that's what makes it so hard to pin down.

When trying to choose bindings one has to ask themselves if they need "the I-Flex or X-Flex Power Straps, with locking mini-ratchet buckles and a panelized stitched strap." I-flex, x-flex, aflex, bowflex—it's a plastic strap that attaches your feet to the board! All I want to know is will it flex AND straighten.

To help you sort all this out they provide an easy to read rating system that happens to correlate with price. The lower the price, the less adjectives and made-up words you pay for. I know this because the lowest rated (4 out of 10) says you get "solid performance and incredible value without sacrificing quality". So that would suggest the quality of the $400 dollar model is just as good as the $160 model. The only difference is the amount of the blurbage.

Boots on the other hand are more complicated, with a binding you simply want to strap your foot to the board, but with a boot you want comfort and warmth, as well as convenience and durability. So, do you get that when you pay more for "high-traction rubber treads and 3D articulating tongues?"

3D articulating tongues!

How articulate is this tongue? Is it going to speak to me in my language? And if it's in 3D will I need those special glasses to understand it? Can a save a few bucks and opt for a low-traction model? What? You don't have a low-traction rubber tread? Don't they make low traction rubber?

As an overall statement of their design philosophy this company claims that "simple contour designs are focused on maximizing overall performance when utilized as a complete set," which basically means: if you're going to buy one thing, you'd better just go ahead and replace everything with their products, or else you can expect minimal overall performance.

Fearing minimal overall performance, one must then consider purchasing one of their boards, which stand to be the most engineered of all items, as they are, in fact, the only part that comes into contact with the snow. Their boards are made from "high density molecular bases with structurn-finishing on the base to lessen friction."

Last time I checked they were made of wood, and while you can find some woods that are denser than others, I'm pretty sure molecules are the only option. As for the structurn finish, everyone I know puts a coat of wax on the base, so if that high-tech friction-lessening base technology isn't actually touching the snow, how well can it work? But mostly I want to know if this board, with all its high level engineering, will in fact flex AND straighten as I negotiate the slopes.