brooklyn gal for a while

Ghost Riding the Whip

Recently, I was in a conversation that litterally could have been titled, "What those crazy kids are doing today". First of all, apparently the cool new thing for high schoolers to do is Ghost Riding the Whip. For those of you too lazy to click the link, let me explain. "the whip" is slang for car. "ghost riding" (as I understand it) is when a person puts the car (a standard) in neutral and driver and passengers get out of the car, run around it, or even on top of it, and then get back in.* At first I didnt really get what the big deal was . . . I mean, I was not a daring kid in highschool, but my group of friends, the quegs**, hyped up on Ellicott City coffee would do Chinese fire drills on our way back to AM's houses. But then it was explained to me . . . while we got out of the car, the emergency break was on . . . with ghost riding the car is moving, but no one is driving, and more often then not, people are on top of the car, while its moving. This of course, reminded me of when Teen Wolf car surfed through the neighborhood before the big basketball game, but then, Stiles is driving in that sceen.
But besides the ridiculousness of the current past time, I was struck by how out of the loop I was in terms of slang. It reminded me of when I tried to explain "to jock" to my parents . . . as in "are you jocking me?" and "dont jock!" All and all, it made me feel a wee bit elder.

i couldnt get you tube to load up for some reason, but check out a clip here: ghost ride clip

*ie, no one is driving the car
**yes, our clique has a name, didn't yours?

posted by gordian knot @ Tuesday, January 23, 2007