Don't Call Me Shirley

A lot of current tv shows reference older movies  - well ok, not that much older, like the 70's and 80's - that are considered as part of our pop culture.  Like I can't tell you how many times I have seen references to The Breakfast Club or Airplane! lately.

These references will occasionally appear while we are all watching tv together.  Hubby and I will get the joke/reference and laugh.  Surly Teenager just looks at us like we are nuts.

So we make her watch the original movie so she will get it.

We did that with Airplane! not too long ago.  And she loved it.  One of the more popular lines from that movie is Leslie Nielsen and his "....and don't call me Shirley." 

Surly Teenager uses it every chance she gets.

Now, when Surly Teenager was younger, she had a hard time with reading.  But she has worked very hard and is in all "regular" classes.  She did, however, develop the habit of not reading the whole word.  She would read the first few letters and maybe some of the other letters and come up with what she thinks it says. Or she would come up with something that sounded close to the actual word.  Once, a word started with br and she jumped to "broccoli", which was wrong but very funny at the time.  I don't remember what the correct word was, but I remember it was funny and I made her slow down and read the WHOLE word and not just the letters she liked.  

Anyway, the point of all this - yes there actually is a point - is that Surly Teenager has started to read my blog.  She came charging out of the room at me last night and said laughing, with a huge smile on her face "Don't call me SHIRLEY"!

(See, she was reading surly and thought it was Shirley and got all excited because she got to use The Line.)