No Longer ‘Beast,’ It’s Now ‘Tank’
I felt a bit like the faux-cool dad, Phil Dunphy from Modern Family yesterday when I attempted to invoke the slang term “beast” when talking with my 11-year-old son and describing something as being cool. (”Beast” is — or was – the kids’ hip way of saying, “cool.” That’s why my eldest two kids told me last year anyway.)
“Mooom!” The Eldest Boy said, “It’s not ‘beast’ anymore!”
“When did that happen?” I asked, chagrined. “What do you mean?”
“It’s ‘tank.’”
“‘Tank?’”
“Yeah, that’s the new word,” he said.
It’s so new, this using “tank” as a synonym for “cool,” that when I looked in the Urban Dictionary of slang words, I couldn’t find a definition of “tank” that matched my son’s.
Combine my verbal miscue with the fact that last week when The Girl and I started dancing in the kitchen after dinner and The Youngest Boy (8) told me I danced “like an old lady,” you can understand why I’m not feeling too hip these days.
Hence my earlier statement that I’m worried that my kids are going to start to think I’ve become a Phil Dunphy. Who the heck is Phil Dunphy? He’s a fictional character from an ABC comedy. Watch the video below and you’ll understand my concern:
Do your kids make you feel woefully out of touch?
Author and columnist Meredith O'Brien gives you a peek behind the picket fences of modern day life and parenting in the 'burbs. With humor and candor, it's her take on real parenting in the real world.
