I think I've officially jumped the shark on being cool

I always dreaded the day I’d have to say the words, “I just don’t get it.”

I have always prided myself on keeping up with the culture, with rolling with the newest fads and if not totally embracing them, then at least knowing a lot about them.

When I was in my teens I was into heavy metal and hard rock, so I immersed myself in that culture and learned all there is to know about hardcore bands and banging your head.

I even, at one point, was a drum tech for a local band. That’s just a fancy way of saying I carried around my buddy’s drums for him.

In my 20s, after realizing I wasn’t going to be able to bang my head forever, I became infatuated with sports again. So I studied every publication and picked the brains of great sports minds to learn more about football, hockey, baseball and basketball.

I’ve always prided myself on my love of history, so learning about the history of sports was always one of my main loves.

The bottom line is that I tried to soak in as much knowledge of possible of sports, music, movies, TV and pop culture to the point where I could become the “King of Useless Knowledge.”

I may not be Jeopardy smart, but I can still make my wife shake her head at the amount of stupid things I know.

I’ve always tried stay on top of fads in culture, if just to be able to recite some useless info that no one else will remember when the fad fades away.

But this week, I met my match. I encountered a fad I just don’t get, and it reminds me I’m not young and hip anymore.

See, I just said hip, that solidifies it.

Now, before I get hate mail and accosted in the street, let me preface this with a simple point. I mean no harm, and this is just my opinion.

I just don’t get Twilight.

(Ducks for cover, avoids shoes being thrown by tweens.)

My niece Jillian, or Jilly-Bean as I call her, and her friend came to visit for a spell last week and while here they had to see the new Twilight movie.

Now, in my niece’s defense she has read the books and isn’t so diehard that she wears a shirt that says “I love vampires.” But before they could see the new one, they had to watch the first two again.

“You have to see them,” Jilly-Bean said. “You’ll love them, I’m sure of it.”

Afraid to lose my mantle of “cool uncle,” I agreed.

I only watched the first one. I somehow avoided having to screen the second. There’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back.

I know people love this stuff. I know girls, and women, swoon over the brooding Edward and ripped Jacob, but I just don’t get it.

I mean (spoiler alert), what vampire sparkles. How freaking wrong is that.

Listen, I have no issue with vampires, or werewolves. They’re scary things that were best produced in the 1930s (Nosferatu is still a great movie), but when they can actually walk into the sunlight and not have to worry about spontaneously combusting and instead have to worry about looking like a reject from Lady Gaga’s closet? That’s when I’m out.

I just don’t get it.

My dad didn’t get AC/DC with my brother, and he didn’t get Metallica with me.

I always said that I’d be the cool dad, the one that listened to my kids’ music and watched their shows and got them.

Well, if Mady likes sparkly vampires, I lied.