Shut your piehole

Recently, an art director I was working with suggested I change some dialogue in a script to make it sound more contemporary. Having embraced a new spirit of flexibility, I yielded and summarized a teenager's expression of shock with the simple, "for reals?"

It pains me to even write that down.

I know this is the "get-off-my-lawn" old man in me talking, but here are some other expressions I will not ever commit to ink:

"my peeps."

"get my drink (or any other verb like eat, sleep or shower) on."

"who's ready to party?" (party is not a verb)

"that's sick."

"that's tight."

"that whack."

"Awesome." (there are 8 wonders in this world that might qualify as awesome. A cheeseburger, a cup of coffee or even a sweater are not one of them)

"let's bounce."

"bromance."

"at the end of the day."

Even,

"dude."

Yesterday I added another phrase to the list.

While at the DMV, I overheard a man on phone telling his friend, "this place is crackin!" I can think of a 1000 adjectives to describe the DMV environment and the DMV experience. Crackin' doesn't even make it to the 100.

In fact, I still don't know what "this place is crackin" means, but it's a safe bet I won't be using that expression even if I did.