Having a Mary Tyler Moore Day

My sister Debbie left a voicemail message on my cell phone the day before yesterday. She said "I'm having a Mary Tyler Moore day!" Without even thinking about it, I knew exactly what she meant.

I called her back and when she picked up, I asked her one question: "How is your hair bump?"

She explained that, while it had been tamed by then, the day before every time she moved her head, she could feel it flopping from side to side.

I'm not sure if it's a sister thing that I knew exactly what she meant, or a generational thing. We grew up in the Mary Tyler Moore Show era and can remember a TON of things from the show by heart. Did you do this in your family, too? Our drama teacher came in to the office yesterday and I asked her what she would think of if someone said to her that they were having a MTM day. She immediately said: hair bump! Solidarity, sistah! She gets it. She said that she and her sister do exactly the same thing my sis and I do. She said that episode is also famous in their family for another reason. Every time she and her sister feel like they're not looking their best, they say to each other "I usually look soooo much better than this!" ...exactly the speech that Mary gave in that episode when she walked up to receive her TEDY award.

While I believe it is a 'sister thing', it's clearly also a generational thing. While having this conversation, another friend of mine asked our office aide if she knew who Mary Tyler Moore was. (Keep in mind, these are middle school students we're talking about.) She said "no". My boss asked her if she knew what M*A*S*H was. She said "no". I asked her if she knew who the Kardashians were; she said "Yes!".

I don't know about you, but I'm afraid of this generation. Very afraid.