A Mindset List™ Moment is a sudden experience of realizing that there are some things that the older or younger generation just doesn't "get". It's an unexpected affirmation that, yes, Virginia, the generation gap really does exist.

Our grandson didn't know the little white thing in the bathroom--his family only uses liquid soap now. 

We were visiting a restored plantation home, and one of the guides, dressed in 18th century garb, was showing how they made "hoe-cakes" back then. We had to explain to a teen that it wasn't that kind of "ho." 

I mentioned to my son that I had lived in one of the first "co-ed" dorms, and gave a blank, uncomprehending stare. 

Some years ago I heard my teen daughter and her friends say "that sucks!" and thought it referred to oral sex. I admonished them, but upon the term's being explained to me, I had to apologize. 

"A real mob scene" was a term I heard my kids using; I feared there had been a riot. 

Two Mindset Moment fans report: "Our children told us that there was this 'round thing' on the phone and they needed someone to explain to them how to use it." 

My daughter recently told me she had suddenly realized the reference was to 8-track, not A-track. 

I mentioned Billy Graham and got a blank look from my fifteen year old. 

I was teaching a short story by Flannery O'Connor about a "tramp." The high school juniors thought a "tramp" was a cheap, promiscuous woman. They were relieved when I used the word "homeless." 

When Roy Rogers died, I told my teen-aged daughter, who said she had never heard of him. 

When was the last time they actually clicked on the "save" icon, as opposed to doing all that strictly with keyboard commands? 

Recently I had a conversation with a young woman, obviously well-read, who nevertheless asked, "What eruption on Mt. St. Helen's?" 

Recently I used the word "swipe" in the sense of "steal" around my son, and realized suddenly that he was confused because I'd said nothing about a bank or credit card. 

A professor recently confused his students on a cold, snowy day when he suggested that they leave their "rubbers" by the classroom door.

A college wrote to its entering students that it would be a good idea to bring a "pair of thongs for the shower" when they arrived on campus. The students did not understand why anyone would wear thongs in the shower or why they came in pairs.

A parent from Hastings, Nebraska, writes: "Today my son saw an on-line photo of a 45 RPM portable record player. He said he thought it was really neat but didn't see how people jogged with it back then." 

From Green Bay, Wisconsin: "I watched GOOD NIGHT, GOOD LUCK with my daughter in hopes that she'd learn something historical about Senator Joe McCarthy, but all she commented on was how filthy it was that all these men in the 50s were smoking cigarettes indoors."

From Milwaukee, Wisconsin: "This generation doesn't care anything about foosball."

From Wilson, North Carolina: "They have no interest in playing foosball!"

From Grosebeck, Texas: "My grandmother wants to buy me a pair of pajamas. Why can't she realize that girls my age don't care about PJs as fashion statements?"

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