Showing My Age

Spending so much time in the hospital recently has made me aware of my age in relation to the majority of the working professionals.  The staff at the hospital was all SO young.  I expected the nurses to be young, but I swear some of them look like teenagers to me.  Even the doctors were young. From the dashing young intern to the oncologist, all were much younger than I would have expected.  Even the surgeon, a renowned and published surgeon, director of several departments, professor at Harvard Medical School, and on the Who's Who list of surgeons for not only Boston but for the entire U.S., is one year younger than I am.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I'm not so old yet that I don't trust those young whipper snappers to know what they're doing.  I am impressed and amazed by the whole operation of Massachusetts General Hospital.  There are a lot of great minds working there, so what if a lot of them happen to be younger than me.  But, it does hamper the use of pop cultural references and movie quotes.

One morning during rounds at the hospital, the doctor was attending to Scott's incision, etc., and it was obviously causing pain.  At one point, Scott cried out "Candy bar!"  The group snickered but I could tell they just thought it was a silly thing to say; not one of them got the reference.  I said to Scott jokingly that they were all probably too young to be familiar with "Little Shop of Horrors." Their blank faces told me I was right, and we didn't bother trying to explain Bill Murray's masochistic character...

"I definitely need a long, slow root canal" 

...or even attempt to describe Steve Martin's brilliant portrayal of the crazy, sadistic dentist.  

"You'll be a dentist, 

you have a talent for causing things pain.  

Son be a dentist, 

people will pay you to be inhumane."

"Oh that hurts, wait I'm not numb."

"Open wide, here I come!"

A few days later, not to give too much information, but Scott was having the normal difficulty getting things "moving" after surgery.  The doctors had told him he couldn't be released from the hospital until there was movement. His very young and cute little nurse, Meghan, offered a laxative. She assured him it would be mild, to which Scott replied, "Well if I'm going to take one, give me one that's sure to do the job.  Like Gallagher said, 'rough me up!'"  Meghan smiled an indulgent nurse smile, but again, it was obvious she didn't get the pop culture reference; she had no idea who Gallagher was.  I laughed and once again said as much, and she confirmed she had never heard of him.  This time, we decided not to just let it go.  So, we started trying to explain Gallagher to her. Of course, we thought she would have heard of the sledge-o-matic.  Nothing.  

"The handiest and dandiest kitchen tool you've ever seen...and don't ya wanna know how it works?  The tool that is not a slicer, not a dicer, not a chopper in a hopper. What in the hell can it possibly be?  It's Sledge-O-Matic!"

We described it in detail, "So, he would take a sledge hammer and smash watermelons with it, and it would spray all over the crowd!  And the people in the front row would wear plastic because they knew they were going to get covered in pulverized fruit!"  Etc., etc.  We were laughing just talking about it.  But Meghan looked at us in all perfect seriousness and said just one word.  "Why?" Absolute silence in the room.  Why indeed.

Later when Scott was trying to get out of bed and walk around for the first time, we didn't even try to explain to the sweet young nurse on duty why we laughed when he told himself "Wiggle your big toe."  Didn't even mention that we had watched both Kill Bill movies the night before his surgery or clue her in that it was the reason for the catchy little tunes we were both constantly whistling or humming.  (For me, it was Elle Driver whistling "Twisted Nerve" as she walked through the hospital resplendent in her nurse uniform and matching white eye patch with the little red cross on it.  Classy creepiness.  For Scott it was Bill's haunting pan flute rendition of Zamfir's "The Lonely Shephard."  I think I need to get the movie soundtrack.  Who can resist singing along with the 5,6,7,8's..."who who, who who who. who who, who who who..."  Tarantino always has the perfect quirky music.)

"You didn't think it was gonna to be that easy, did you?"

"You know, for a second there, yeah, I kinda did."

"Silly rabbit."

"Trix...are...for kids." 

My favorite quote from the Kill Bill movies, but apparently the younger generation doesn't get that one either.  I saw a Quentin Tarantino forum recently where someone wrote:  Just wondering what the phrase "Trix are for kids" refers to. Is it perhaps from a past QT movie or is this only explained in Vol.2?

Of course, it's a play on words of the name Beatrix, but what got me on the forum was how many were clueless that it was an old cereal ad.  I really didn't even know it wasn't still a current ad. Do they even make Trix anymore?

So, for at least the remainder of the hospital stay, we just kept our pop culture references and jokes between ourselves, and felt superior to and a little sorry for the poor younger generation because they just don't know what they missed.

_________