Could I be -- a hipster?

Well, just when you think you’ve got a handle on things, the world throws you a curve. I had just said to myself that I might as well find out about this “hipster” thing to see if I might be one without knowing it. At my age, it’s a little hard to tell where you fit in the social scheme of things, what with X and Y generations, not to mention Millennials, Phase 1 and Phase 2. I missed the Greatest Generation by 20 years or so, and the Baby Boomers by a decade. I think hipsters can be any age at all 00 but where do I fit?

I decided to approach the question scientifically. I’d draw up a list of pros and cons to see if I fit into the hipster mode: H (for hipster) in one column and NH (non-hipster) in the other.

Okay. Then I had to look up just what is a hipster. First thing: a hipster is one who is thought to be cool by cool people. That’s easy. The coolest people I know are my husband, the 50-plus geezers I hang out with, my daughter, and my three grandsons. And guess what – they all think I’m pretty cool. So chalk one up for the H side.

On the other hand, I have no idea what you would do with a mustache on a stick or a horse’s head mask that I saw on a hipster gear website. (NH).

I’d rather live in a small town in Texas than in Portland. (NH)

On the few occasions when I have been coaxed into a cocktail bar, I order beer. (NH)

I do own an e-reader (H), but the books I have stored on it probably cancel that one out.

I have a laptop, and I can use an electronic recorder, download and edit audio and burn a disk (H), but I don’t have any e-games, or a smart phone and I mostly use my computer for work (NH)

I blog – but mostly I communicate by email; no tweeting, no skyping, and I don’t have anything stored in a cloud (what is that, anyway?) (NH)

Then, this morning, as I was driving to my fitness center (H), in my beat-up Ford F-150 pickup (NH) listening to AM talk radio (Two or three NH’s at least), I heard something that rocked my world and skewed all my calculations.

 Are you ready for the latest “old school” game hipsters have embraced? Here’s a clue – it’s spelled B-I-N-G-O.
A Ms. Fiorentino -- black-haired, red-lipsticked, black-framed eyeglasses and all whose picture probably appears in the dictionary next to “hipster,” and who makes her living as a drummer for Smashing Pumpkins, was recently spotted  playing Bingo at a tea shop owned by Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan.  
And that’s not all. The hip crowd has also embraced  knitting, bowling and euchre.

That puts me over the top. Hand me my Bingo card, my knitting needles and a mustache on a stick.