Dust Bunnies on The Brain

The other day my wife said to me: "I need to get those pictures off the camera so I can get them developed."

I looked at her like she had three heads and said, "Developed? Who gets pictures developed any more?"

In response, she offered an appropriate phrase which I cannot reproduce here because there might be children reading.

Our language is full all sorts of antiquated terminology lurking at the fringes of our collective vernacular. The older we get, the more there is. That's not to say that my wife is ... that is to say ... we're both at an age when ... okay, you may insert your appropriate phrase here.

Every once in a while I find myself saying things that cause anyone under the age of twenty to stare at me with a blank look. The problem is language, as a form of communication, is in constant flux. Ever evolving with the latest trend, technology or pop culture reference. These things just collect, like dust bunnies under the sofa, every now and then popping out with embarrassing results.

The ones I particularly resent are those that I had to learn in order to sound somewhat saavy about a particular technology, only to have them jettisoned with the newest innovation. Things like:

Zip drive
Syquest
Floppy disc

In case you hadn't already figured it out, the first two, like that latter, were all forms of digital storage. Long before USB keys were invented, if we're still using those.

Then there are those terms that once related to a specific type of technology:

Ceramic or magnetic cartridge
Rumble or hum
Direct or belt drive

If you're old enough, you'll know what I'm talking about.

I can remember when Dolby technology meant cassette tapes that didn't have a hissing sound. An innovation that I always thought rather dubious. Just press a button and that annoying hissing sound goes away, as well as all of the top end frequencies. But heck, it sounded cool so we bought into it anyway. These days Dolby sound technology is so advanced it actually blows what's left of the hair off my head.

Probably the worst of these verbal dinosaurs are the pop culture references. Those nasty little blurbs crop up all the time, despite all efforts to quell them. Who the hell says:

'10-4, good buddy.'
'Up your nose with a rubber hose.'
'Gag me with a spoon.'

Or those Jurassic descriptors:

Freaky-deaky!
Neat!
Cool-o!

Nobody under twenty, I can guarantee you.

There ought to be a warehouse somewhere in our brains where we can keep these things locked up until needed, like say a retro party. Instead they just loiter around our heads waiting for the right moment to stumble into conversations instantly rendering our credibility moot and leaving the listener wondering if we've suddenly started speaking in tongues.

The problem for me is that unlike normal people, who employ their grey matter to store useful information, my brain is a vast repository of trivial pop-culture references. I remember lines from movies that are older than most kids in college. Song lyrics are probably the worst. I have a dear friend who, at the risk of receiving another appropriate phrase, has more life experience than I. She would frequently quote lyrics from songs that were *ahem* before my time.  No matter what subject was discussed, she could produce a lyric that fit. My friends and I used to wonder aloud if there must be a song for everything. To which she would reply "If you're around long enough kid, you'll realize there is."

Dammit, she's right.

These days I can barely get through a conversation without the words of some obscure song from a distant era popping up like a whack-a-mole in my frontal lobe. Be it 60s protest band, 70s rock band, 80s hair band, 90s grunge band or 00s teen-angst-punk band, I got 'em all.

Every once in a while though, when one of those archaic phrases pops out of my mouth someone else's eyes will light up. They got it! Like some kind of secret code has been unlocked, an instant connection is made and a flood of memories are released.

I suppose it's not so bad to have stored up all of those seemingly useless tidbits of data. In some ways that tacky, hodge-podge collection is a sort of trophy case of life's experiences. Without which we would not be who we are.

And that's no jive.