"Sauce" Since teaching in a high school for the past month, it has become blaringly apparent (sometimes like acid thrown in my face) that I am no longer hip. I've been able to pull off style quite successfully in the past, but lately I've become self-conscious about all this mumbo-jumbo. And this mumbo-jumbo didn't mean much to me until, all of a sudden, I started feeling old. Not really in the sense that I can't drink three beers without having a hangover the next morning (truth), or that I can't run 8 miles anymore (lie--I never could), but
...old in the sense that I will take the time to put on the breaks and roll down my window to shout at the kid who just rode his bike down a hill and into the street without looking. I mean, he probably looked. He probably anticipated that he would cross the street in front of me before I'd come within 20 feet of hitting him because he probably has better eyesight than me.
...old in the sense that I've started shopping at Ann Taylor Loft, where they have like 20 styles of the most basic colors of pants.
...old in the sense that waking up after 9am is unimaginable.
...old in the sense that I have hips (unlike most of the highschool girls I see everyday) but I am not hip.
...old in the sense that I don't know the lingo that blends you into any hip crowd.
(Even the word "old" is becoming old.)

A particular situation comes to mind...

I am teaching some kids how to make a budget and instructing them to title their project. One kid asks, "Can I just name mine "'sauce?'" I look at him...I look at him with a deep stare of deep confusion. I reply, "Glenwood, the title of your project should reflect its content. Unless...'sauce' means money?" Glenwood immediately lifts his head out of a deep boredom and actually smiles (because he's a guy, and guys in high school feel that smiling lessens their manhood or something), and they all start snickering. Student With ADHD For Real says, "Ms. C, I am dissappointed in you." Student Who Got Pinned Down In My Classroom by the Resource Officer asks, "Man, when'd you graduate high school? I fuckin' hate this school!" Glenwood tells me, "'Sauce' don't mean 'money.' It's like, you know, 'sauce,' like, 'that's sauce.'"

Although I didn't care that I didn't know (and even now can only infer that 'sauce' means 'cool'), I felt a tinge of disappointment that I wasn't hip to the cool of high school anymore. Not that it was ever that cool, but I bet most of us clung to a version of it, or tried to mimic it, or fantasized about redefining cool to include our likes and interests. I mean, someone fantasized about making "sauce" part of a highschooler's common language. Somehow he or she made that happen. So...

CONCLUSION
What's old: Sauce as a noun used to describe that liquid which you pour over pasta (etc.).
What's hip: Sauce as an adjective that may or may not mean "cool."  ¶ 7:30 PM