45 Shades of Grey

I was at a board meeting last week for a small non-profit I'm active in.  If that sounds impressive, rest assured it is not.  We have monthly evening board meetings, as many of us are either employed or busy during the day with other things.

We were discussing a situation that needed to be resolved with one of the participants in the non-profit.  The situation was certainly not cut and dry.  There were lots of factors to consider, and we all weighed in with our take on things.  One of the men on the board, in an attempt to sway us to his view of things, said, "well, look, I get that this thing has 45 shades of grey.  But I really think we ought to ...."

Honestly, I didn't hear anything for a minute or so after that so I'm not even sure what he wanted to do.  All of the women on the board (it's about half and half) jerked their heads upward, startled, and looked at each other.

I stared across the table at the very capable woman lawyer who's been on the board for several years.  She looked back at me and her eyes got big.  The woman sitting next to me shifted in her seat, cleared her throat, and gave me a subtle elbow.  I glanced at her and grimaced.

The worst part was, he said it again about 5 minutes later.  He clearly had no idea what he was referring to, and no one at the table was going to let him know that he'd just made an unintentional reference to a best selling series of Mommy Porn.  And he hadn't even gotten the correct number of shades!

Look, I haven't read the book and don't intend to.  I heard a couple of morning radio guys reading aloud from it and frankly it didn't sound that interesting.  I am not in the least resentful of the author's success - in fact, I hope she is heartily laughing all the way to the bank.  But now the phrase has made its way into the cultural lexicon and people are unwittingly using it during a non-profit board meeting.  Make it stop already!