A joke suddenly came to me; I was about to shout out, "it's a bloody glove that doesn't fit." But just before doing so, I remembered that this is general chemistry. I would thus say that freshmen comprise the majority of the class. Therefore, I reached the conclusion that the joke would fall flat. The professor might appreciate it (he makes a lot of jokes himself), and it might get a smattering of laughs, but it would sail right over a lot of heads. I'd reached adolescence when the O. J. Simpson murder trial saga went down; in my timeline, it started at the tail end of seventh grade and finished a month into my freshman year of high school. But these nascent college students were babies. They don't recall the poetic stylings of the late Johnnie Cochran, or the name Mark Fuhrman, or the white Bronco and the phrase "THIS IS A.C.! I'VE GOT O.J. IN THE CAR! YOU KNOW WHO THIS IS!"
So I refrained, and internally noted the reminder that I'm just into my fourth decade of existence - and that no matter how much effort I expend, there may be some "generational gaps" that cannot be crossed.
