Kurt Cobain (front) and Krist Novoselic (left) live at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I had occasion to hang out with some girls who are a bit younger than I am; I don’t want to admit how much younger because every time I try, I have to go sulk for a while and I want to get this blog post published tonight.  We started out talking about current events, which went fine.  I summarized world events and gave insightful and witty commentary, and the girls all nodded appreciatively because they had no idea what I was talking about.  My favorite kind of audience.

I should add that, throughout the conversation, even when they were all talking excitedly to each other, they all had their cell phones out and were texting and surfing and twittering the entire time.  They either have the most amazing abilities to concentrate on more than one conversation at once, or else they’re talking to me and simultaneously tweeting things like “Sky cloud sleeping greenly lol asdf qwerty #notreallypayingattention #godhelpthefuture”.  I don’t know.  I don’t really understand this Twitter thing.

Which brings me to tonight’s blog topic:  I am not old!  I’m not, really.  It’s just these kids today, with their smart phones and their YouTube…did you know that MTV doesn’t play music videos anymore?  I didn’t know that.  I’m pretty sure I still wouldn’t have known that even if I owned a television.  Oh, and no one actually uses a cell phone to call someone anymore. It’s all texting and tweeting.  The only call I saw any of the girls get was from one of their parents.

One girl was typing away on her netbook (I think that’s what it was) and went to save her work, commenting “I’ve never understood why this icon means ‘save’.  I don’t even know what it is.”  I leaned over; it was the icon for a floppy disk.  I tried really hard to not feel old. I was wearing low-rise jeans!  And I was entitled to!  You can’t do that and be old, right?

Then the conversation turned to our taste in music.  I recognized at least half of the names they mentioned as their favorite artists, which was encouraging.  Some of them even liked Adele and thought she was cool, and I was all “Me, too!  Me too!  Wow, you guys are awesome.  We’re totally bonding.”  Then I plucked up my courage and mentioned Kurt Cobain, musical genius and tortured soul, and how much I enjoy the body of work he left behind.  Four blank stares and complete silence.  Then, and I’m not kidding about this, one of them asked, “Who’s Kurt Cobain?”

And then I gave up.  I’m old.  I’d tweet it to the world if I knew how.