The Kid Gets Snarky

So we're driving. I'm trying to listen to my beloved Billy Bragg, who is singing to me about God's Footballer, who scores goals on Saturday and saves souls on a Sunday, and breathe my way through an anxiety attack, and the kid speaks up to DEMAND to know what a retrocartoon is.

Me: "Now what now?"

The Kid: "A retrocartoon."

Me: "I have no idea. Use it in a sentence." (My standard dodge, btw, when I don't want to answer a question. That and "Why did we buy you that dictionary if you ain't ever plan to look anything up in it?")

The Kid: "It's not IN a book. It was on The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. Magic Music Maker turned everything on the farm into a cartoon and Mandy got squirted with milk and when she got up she said I hate retrocartoons. What's a retrocartoon?"

Me: "Oh. Crap." Because where do I start on that one? I gave her a brief explanation of retro, and how it was meant to be ironic, sort of, and how, in which case, this was supposed to be funny, since it was a kid's cartoon, did she get it now?

The Kid: "No. What's retrocartoon?"

Me: "I'm sorry. That's the best I can do. You won't get it until you're about 20."

The Kid: "Why? Why won't I get it until I'm 20?"

Me: "Because you don't have the cultural baggage. You won't have the cultural baggage to get that joke for about 12 more years. That's how it is."

The Kid: "Where can I buy the baggage?"

Me: (ever so patiently) "You can't *buy* cultural baggage. You can only collect it."

The Kid: (eye-roll apparent in her voice) "That was a *joke*, Mom."