Geriatric Pirate

For some inexplicable reason, my wife Robin has on more than one occasion suggested that I celebrate my retirement by getting my ear pierced.

Go figure.

Maybe she wants to ease the pain of losing one-half of some of her pairs and be able to pawn off all the single earrings in her collection to me.

Possibly she wants me to go halfsies on future purchases with one of our sons who sports an earring.

The most plausible explanation is that it would be a clear statement that I am retired, a Medicare pirate “footloose and fancy free,” and no longer a buttoned down attorney. Kind of a mini stamp of late in life cool to take attention away from my otherwise decidedly nerdy past and present.

Similar to a bald guy who sports a ponytail so people focus less on his shiny pate (which could work for me too).

I am afraid that, with or without an earring, no stamp of cool is going to stick to this pirate.

Stylish for me is when I put on a black Mets hat instead of the classic blue and orange.

And then there is the part about someone sticking a needle through my ear.

Who was the first person to even come up with the idea “Hey, why don’t I drive a sharp stick through my ear (or nose, tongue, nipple, etc.) so I can attach this nice rock?”

Minoans, Egyptians, Mesopotamians and various ancient Brooklyn hipster tribes made body piercing cool when it was truly “back in the day,” but Otzi the iceman, the oldest known preserved human (other than members of the U.S. Senate), was found to have pierced ears and may have been the first.

So, in summary, mummified remains from the Neolithic Period could strut their stuff with pierced style but there is nothing I can do to get even a little bit edgy.

At least Robin has not (yet) proposed that I get a tattoo.

Not that I have an issue with tattoos or believed my mother when she said that if I got a tattoo I could not be buried in a Jewish cemetery (Morgan Freeman did believe her - - but he believed everything my mom said).

A tattoo just never made it to my bucket list, even if I could then get matching tats with our other two sons who have gone down the inkwell.

Here again, the fear factor sets in with another needle, but this one handled by a scary looking guy with half of the Old Testament tattooed on his neck.

Again, who had the bright idea to PERMANENTLY paint pictures on their skin?

Yep. Our boy Elroy (or, in this case, Otzi). Our prehistoric hipster apparently also had around 60 tattoos.

If I did get a tattoo I already have a design in mind.

I would shave a straight two inch strip across my far from bare chest and have a tattoo placed there of someone mowing their lawn.

Most of the time, this could stay covered up (for many obvious reasons), but I could bring out my razor whenever needed for special events; parties, Bar Mitzvahs, weddings.

Recently, at a bankruptcy hearing in Delaware for tween retailer Claire’s, the various piercings of the still practicing attorneys become part of the court record in an example of way too much sharing.

One attorney said that she and her friends went to Claire’s for piercings, another acknowledged that “in a weak moment, and having lost a bet”, he was pierced at Claire’s, and the judge volunteered that both of his daughters got their ears pierced at Claire’s.

Talk about weak moments, another attorney pledged “I’m prepared to head back to Claire’s” for another piercing “if a buyer [for the company] is found and keeps at least some of its stores open.” That is just what happened and he was pierced right there in the courtroom.

Unfortunately, nothing takes the air out of the cool factor faster from, well anything, but in this case an ear piercing, than having the subject be an attorney.

In my case, with the double whammy of being retired and an attorney, I enter a black hole that sucks out the light of any semblance of hip culture.

All is not lost though, since this black hole of uncool is actually a superpower that only increases with age.

Let me explain.

We can stop anything dead in its tracks just by participating.

Don’t believe me?

Try dancing at a party with your kids in attendance.

Or singing along to music on the radio with your children in the car.

And, remember that everyone under 30 stopped using Facebook as soon as their parents signed up.

Proof of this theory can be found in the similar realization recently made by certain middle school math teachers to solve the “Six Seven” phenomenon.

Six Seven is hard to describe but apparently arose out of a meme, defined by Wikipedia as “a cultural item that spreads across the Internet, primarily through social media platforms.”

So, basically, something nobody my age ever sees or hears about.

It is somehow tied to the rapper Skrilla, the NBA’s LaMelo Ball, a viral video of a boy yelling “six seven” with hand motions, and possibly Area 51 aliens.

Now, whenever tween students across the country hear these magic numbers, they immediately scream “SIX Sevennnnnn,” squealing with “a palms-up, seesaw hand gesture that looks somewhere between juggling and melon handling.”

“It’s like throwing catnip at cats” said one teacher.

Six seven is a “generational inside joke” that is not funny and has no meaning (much like this newsletter), which for tweens makes it hysterically funny and full of meaning since the message to grown ups is “like, it’s none of your business.”

Hey, we had our own generational shenanigans that were meme adjacent, we just did not know it since we lived in the before times when there was no internet.

We had hula hoops in the 1960’s, pet rocks in the 1970’s, and wassssuuuup in the 1990’s.

Luckily, there is nothing on planet Earth that is too hard for middle school teachers to solve.

They are the educator version of Navy Seals, having spent most of their awake hours in early puberty boot camp training.

The teachers have learned that the only way to stop Six Seven is to say it themselves, “killing it with their uncoolness.”

I have been unwittingly practicing this art for years.

Some math teachers have even started asking ChatGPT to create tests where every answer is six, seven, 67 etc., so that they can beat their kiddies to yelling “Six Sevennnnnn” and do the hand motions.

Genius.

Time for the kiddies to find a new meme.

I am looking for new ways to use this superpower and am open to suggestions.

In the meantime, I do wonder whether if I had only pierced my ear and gotten a tattoo years ago, my sons might be a bit more clean cut and corporate today.

In truth, who wants clean cut corporate children - - I would not change anything about them.

But, at the risk of cratering the jewelry industry, maybe an earring for me is in order after all.

Just not sure which way to go …

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