YHB’s Gracious Host today asked about Mental Age, that is, “how old do you think of yourself as being, and how different is that (if at all) from what the calendar tells you?” After thinking about it for a while, I’m wondering if a big part of Mental Age is not so much how old I think of myself as being, but how old I think of the people I want to spend time with as being. Given the choice between spending time with people with a Mental Age of mid-20’s, say, or people with a Mental Age of 40, I’d rather be with my cohort and talk about our kids, our houses and our new medical conditions. This is nothing against people who are in the mid-20’s, either really or mentally; many of my best friends are Mentally in their mid-20s. But put me with a bunch of 40-year-olds, and I’m sure we have more to talk about than impeachment and the Dead Kennedys.
Which coincided with a train of thought sparked (are trains sparked?) by this morning’s Brewster Rocket, Space Guy. It seems (Your Humble Blogger was musing) that you could divide the adult population into three groups by their responses to a simple question: Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?
The first group, of course, is the group of people who have no idea who lives in a pineapple under the sea, and don’t really want to know, and what the hell is a pineapple doing under the sea anyway. These people include, for instance, YHB’s parents. They may well be my favorite of the three groups; you could well have a lengthy and interesting conversation with these people that has nothing to do with Paris Hilton, spitrags or Harry Potter. Or the iPhone. Your Humble Blogger is not in this group.
Your Humble Blogger is in the second group, the one whose response is the one that really irritates them is the Doodlebops. We know that Diego is Dora’s cousin, and if they have any more cousins, we would want to kill them, too. The conversation will quickly turn to how badly Sesame Street sucks these days, and how tragic the whole thing is.
The third group of adults will respond the same way a six-year-old would, by shouting Sponge!Bob!Square!Pants! Don’t be confused—these people do not have a Mental Age of 6. And they aren’t necessarily homosexual (although, of course, you can’t rule it out). No, they may well be your friends and co-workers, your neighbors, your FedEx delivery man, your hairstylist, your beat cop, your police officer, the people that you meet, when you’re walking down the street, they’re the people that you meeeeeet eeeeeeach—
Er. Excuse me. Got distracted there. It’s a totally different thing.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
I think a lot of it depends on how the question is asked. If I am asked rhythmically in the voice of a drunken sea dog, then clearly the “Sing the Spongebob Song” Game is being played, and I would likely play along, as I am Game for Such Things, having (as I do) a child of four years.
Also, a Mental Age of six.
If I am asked, thoughtfully over cocktails, dressed in my finest garb, among adults of a sober demeanor, I’ll wonder what the hell I’m doing in such a boring crowd of sticks, as they were, in the mud, and probably yell “Sponge! Bob! Square! Pants!” simply on principle.
See above cited Mental Age.
On the other hand, if I’m sitting on the back porch with a beer and it’s sunny, and my feet are getting sunburned, and kids are playing in the wading pool, I may be in sufficiently philosophical a mood to join in on the discussion of Diego, his family, the relative merits of Barney versus Thomas, the evolution of television as babysitter, and how nice it would be not to have the television on, and to watch the kids playing in the pool, with a beer in my hand, sitting on the porch with friends of similar minds as my feet roast slowly in the sun.
peace
Matt
What of the fourth group, adults not of your parents’ generation, who nonetheless hesitate when asked about the pineapple under the sea, and wonder if you didn’t really mean the octopus’ garden, before realizing that oh yes, how silly of them?