Groovy mom is backsiding on the edge of wicked sick

(MCT) — My college son texted me after a particularly hard test at school the other day.

"Bombed it," the text read.

I wanted to respond with my support.

But does "Bombed it" mean he aced the test?

Or that he flunked it?

Did I need to reply: "Oo, so sorry, d00d!"?

Or was the correct response: "You are off the hinges, man!"?

The way I saw it, this was one of those make-it-or-break-it moments in parent-to-child relations. How I replied to "Bombed it" would forever cinch my role as either a) a hip, Abercrombie parent who soooo could use a bikini butterfly tattoo or as b) a poser, a Twitter wanna-be, a frumpy middle-aged mama ready for the glue factory and the elastic waistband crowd.

Carefully weighing my options from the grocery store parking lot where I sat with my cell phone, I considered the many slang uses of the word "bomb." Some of them I knew to be good, suggesting an aced test. Some of them I knew were bad, suggesting imminent flunkage, to wit:

"That concert was the bomb," for example, is usually good.

"I heard Gordo got bombed at Guido's the other night," meanwhile, is bad, if you are hate hangovers and/or you're watching "The Sopranos."

But then, "Yo, homey, that sound coming outa your box is the bomb dot com" is good, assuming you like music.

No wonder I'm confused. And while I'm at it, I think of the other confusing pop lingo to which my kids and "The Office" have exposed me. You'd think "sick," and "wicked," for example, would be bad — since one means you might have the Swine flu and the other is attached to Dorothy's nemesis at Oz. Only they're not, especially when "bad" really means "bad," which it often doesn't.

Same with "dope." Everybody knows the slang word "dope" means either a doofus, or drugs, both of them suggesting negative connotation. But then I think about the blog my son started for his sister's high school soccer team weeks before the "Bombed it" txt event. Writing about the goalie, who is a totally sick, wicked dudette in the goal box, my son said: "Abby B. is dope."

I was thinking at the time that "dope" is a doofus on heroin, which I know Abby B. is not.