I’ll Take Pop Culture for $400, Alex.

We’re a pop culture-obsessed family. (Well, some of us more than one* of us.)

It started with my sister and me. We are pop culture fanatics. We watched a healthy dose of television as youngsters**. As we grew up, we devoured movies, live shows, music, and magazines (and of course these days, the internet). As adults, we have exposed D and J to pop culture in the same way we were, and we have shared all of our favorite shows, movies, and music from our own youth. The result of the preoccupation with these kinds of things, besides the ability to be really good at answering questions from friends when they have a bet with someone, or the potential to be a lifeline on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” or a mobile shout out on “Cash Cab”?

We quote pop culture constantly around here, and that’s an understatement.

The level to which we have allowed the influence of pop culture to creep into our daily conversations might be horrifying to others.

We quote Eddie Murphy, “The Brady Bunch”, “Saturday Night Live”, “The Cosby Show”, “Arrested Development”, Brian Regan, and countless other sources. The words trip off our tongues as if we made them up ourselves, which of course, we didn’t.

In fact, a while back I thought J was a total genius when he told me that he came up with a slogan for the grocery store chain Whole Foods: “For your food hole”. Then, after I tweeted his genius I was reminded that comedian Doug Benson was actually the genius behind that. Oops. Honest mistake. I knew it had sounded familiar.

Of course, the rest of the world doesn’t work the way we do. When J told us at dinner last night that the theme for this year’s Homecoming dance is “Under the Big Top”, my sister got excited and exclaimed, “PEE WEE??”

“Uh, no,” he said. “Just circus.”

It’s a shame, really: I’d take Pee Wee over clowns any day.

*Jim
**And yet, still growing up to be smart, social women! Imagine that!