We Are Our Parents

I just had a brilliant weekend in Melbourne with friends, however it continued my ever-growing concern that I am turning into an old man.

Remember when we were kids and your parents would have people over, and you'd eventually go to bed wondering how it was possible that a bunch of old people could just sit around drinking and talking until well after midnight? Even in our early 20's, the night always ended with losing your friends at a club or being refused entry to a bar for being a drunken idiot.

Well, both my Friday and Saturday nights came to a close with me drinking scotch (neat, of course) while chatting to my friends about god knows what. And it was nice, but scary, to think that it is actually possible for me to drink for hours at a time and not find myself inebriated and doing something that would cause me to die of embarrassment if it ever made its way to YouTube.

The most shocking moment of the weekend, one that confirmed how old we are, is when a member of our group didn't know what Jersey Shore was. To be clear, I'm not saying she hadn't watched an episode, even I've never done that. But she's never *heard* of Jersey Shore. While I realize that we'd all be better off not having heard of Jersey Shore, the fact is that even my mother who lives in the French countryside knows what it is.

Needless to say, I am trying to help this poor friend of mine cling to whatever semblance of her youth she has remaining, and she has been sent various videos of Snooki, The Situation, et. al. as part of her education. We're not giving up that easily.