…you can no longer understand the messages conveyed by the music videos that fueled your teenage years.

I’m sure that when we watched the video for “Shout” by Tears For Fears back in the 80’s, we understood, on a deep cellular and metaphysical level, the reason for the angst that was consuming the band during the performance of this song.

But now it just leads to conversations like this:

My husband: I’ve never seen quite that level of teeth before when someone is singing.

Me: I know. It’s kind of scary.

TFF: “Shout, shout, let it all out, these are the things I can do without.”

My husband: What things? What things?! We’d shout with you if we knew what the hell you were talking about!

Do you remember this commercial from the 80’s:

Picture of an egg: “This is your brain.”

Picture of an egg frying in a pan: “This is your brain on drugs.”

Well, I’m feeling a real affinity for that commercial this morning. and I’m thinking that I could revive that ad campaign by making my own, updated version of that commercial. Only mine would not be about substance abuse. Mine would say, “This is my brain after four days of an extremely inflamed shoulder muscle, which was then poked with what felt like really sharp sticks, but was actually a licensed health care professional using medically approved health care tools.” Catchy, huh?

The purpose of my commercial would be to illustrate the process my mind undergoes as it searches for the perfect, most articulate, most precise method of utilizing swear words to describe this particular pain. (Hey, I never said my commercial would have a deep or meaningful purpose.)

Step 1: I mentally inventory all the “bad” words I know, often trying them out in a Fill-In-The-Blank, Complete The Following Sentence With The Best Word sort of situation.

For example, “_____, my shoulder hurts!” Or, “My shoulder hurts like_____!” (This is where all my years as a language teacher really come in handy.)

Step 2: Once I’ve settled on the perfect word I play around with it a bit, to see if there are any ways that I can embellish it.

For example, Can I string it out by adding extra syllables? Can I stress it in a different way? Can I pronounce it in a funny accent?

Step 3: Next I look for a catchy theme song or a kicky advertising jingle, in order to set my words to music.

I don’t need to provide an example here, because I know that if you’re reading this post, you’re already experimenting with this process for yourself.

Step 4: Generally by this time the pain meds have begun to kick in, so my song drifts down to the level of a mantra, or a tribal chant.

For example, “BUM, bum, bum, bum, BUM, bum, bum, bum, BU-um, BUM.”

I’m not really sure what happens next because, if all has gone according to plan, at this point I am finally asleep. Or, at the very least, I am enjoying the benefits of a heavily medicated stupor, cradled by this gentle lullaby: “BUM, bum, bum, bum, BUM, bum, bum, bum, BU-um, BUM.”

And tonight I had to admit it.

Oh sure, there have been signs for a while now:

-the fact that the music from “Top Gun”, the defining movie of my teenage years, now frequently appears in its’ panflute version as Muzak.

-the fact that when I said to one of my tutoring students, “Oh, we’re about to start the chapter on…THE PLANE”, he did not immediately respond with an impression of Tattoo.

-the fact that I began a sentence with, “When I was growing up in the ’70’s”, and the student I was tutoring gasped so heavily I thought he was going to implode.

-the fact that when I try to explain the parts of speech by singing, “Conjunction Junction, what’s your function?”, or, “Lolly Lolly Lolly, get your adverbs here!”, my students don’t join in and sing with me. Instead, they surreptitiously look around for the nearest exit.

But tonight I saw something that forced my out of my denial and into the truth: the cultural experiences that played a part in forming who I am are “officially” old. I realized this at the music store when I saw that the 3 disc sets of 80’s hits on sale for $9.99 looked EXACTLY like the 3 disc sets of the music that I consider to be “old”.

Clearly fictionalized stories of my childhood, involving phrases like, “barefoot in the snow”, and “uphill both ways” cannot be far behind.