Mashing The Generations Together

(I am 23 years old. For my college program, I am doing a field placement at an agency that serves the surrounding low-income neighbourhood. During the day it mostly serves as a place for local kids to hang out, do homework, socialize, etc. I am watching over some kids to make sure they’re either reading or doing homework. Three of the girls, around 8 to 10 years old, are writing on sheets of paper. They claim they are doing math homework, but I suspect they are not. My suspicions are confirmed when one of them hands a sheet to another and I see that it’s set up for the game MASH.)

Me: “Are you guys playing MASH instead of doing homework?”

(All three girls stare at me in shock. The one who was holding the sheet is slack-jawed.)

Girl: *stammering* “I… you… how… but… YOU know what MASH is?!”

Me: “Of course! I remember playing that with my friends when I was your age!”

(It took a few seconds for the girls to digest this. The revelation that their game was not arcane knowledge understood only by children apparently shocked them to their very cores. For just a moment, the looks on their faces were as if I’d just shattered their entire conception of how the world works. It made me feel old.)