Latest teenage lingo confuses my generation

I’ve been on a mission trip again. This time it was to Red Springs, NC- the same place I went last year with a group of college students from Gardner-Webb. Supposedly in this arrangement, I am the chaperone. Even though I was the only “adult”, I was far from lonesome. I learned much during my time driving the van, especially all the new terms the kids are using in conversation these days. For example, the word “beast” is now an acceptable verb as in, “Coach, beast up and pass that slow truck in the road ahead of us.” Even my ten-year-old got in on the act recently. He came home one day last week and bragged, “I beasted in football during recess at school today.” Back in my day, both the words “cool” and “hot” could mean something was popular. That’s still true but today, you can also say something is “nasty, filthy, or sick” and it still serve as a raging compliment. I overheard one young lady having a rather heated conversation on her cellphone with a friend of hers. Let me assure you I wasn’t eavesdropping because kids don’t mind if you hear their conversations these days. In fact, sometimes they put it on speakerphone so everyone can hear. Anyway, at one point she said, “It’s not acceptable for us to agree to disagree on this.” In the old days you could agree to disagree and the conversation was over and the friendship was preserved. But apparently for some kids, times have changed. They’ve got to hash it out and find some middle ground before they can move forward. The most fascinating revelations I was privy to involved male/female relationships. In primitive times, two people who were dedicated solely to each other referred to themselves as courting. From that, the whole “going steady” phenomenon emerged. “Leave her alone,” a boy would say, “she and I are steady.” That got a little old in my day so we referred to it as “going together”, though we weren’t exactly sure where it was we were going. And in most cases we didn’t go anywhere before we got our driver’s licenses. But at least it served as a workable definition of courtship, unlike the confusion that exists among today’s kids. Case in point: On the last day of our trip, we passed a man riding a motor scooter and a girl in the van announced, “My almost boyfriend rides a scooter sometimes.” I just had to ask, “What in the name of all that is good is an almost boyfriend?” It’s when you’re talking, which is now the last step before dating, I was told. So, what is talking? Talking is when you are texting, facebooking, or making eyes at each other in the cafeteria. And if by chance you should ever go out on your first date, your almost boyfriend immediately transitions into a full-fledged boyfriend, even if he hasn’t asked you to go steady. I’m glad I’m semi-old and don’t have to keep up with all the newfangled rules. But just to stay hip, I beasted up the other day and asked my former almost girlfriend- now wife- if she would “go” with me. “Sure,” she said, “as long as we end up at the grocery store. We’re out of milk.” Filthy sick.