I'm really old.

Insert Trojan joke here.


When I went to the state basketball tournament as a 15-year-old, I wore a T-shirt over a white turtleneck printed with black pandas. I now cringe at my naivete--but even the skanky girls wore shirts in public. It was a dark, repressed age. Like the 60s.

My dad tells my niece to be nice to me, because when she's older and her mother won't let her do something, I will be her best ally. I think he needs to qualify that statement: Summer camp? Expensive toys? Engineering school? All good. Dressing like a two-bit whore in public? I'm siding with her mother until she completes her education. I'd like to think it's because I have her mental and physical well-being at heart, but it's probably because I'm old and bitter.

I don't even know what a "big ballaz" is, nor am I about to Google it.