It’s So My Mom.

My 50-something-year-old mom has always used the word “tough” in a context that was foreign to my friends and me: “That dress is so tough.” “I saw the TOUGHEST necklace.” “My artist friend painted this REAL tough (narrowed eyes, slight head jerk) picture when she was in the Italy artists program … ”

I’m told by people who were alive during the ’70s that “bitchin’” was a contemporary phrase of “tough”—guess which one made the unofficial cut to last until the mid ’90s? Not the one my mom uses.

What will I be saying in twenty years?

“I walked in on your son looking at PrOn and had to lol—but his ass is grass if I catch him again.”