[[Two men with beards stand at a crude wooden counter, one is wearing a turban. Behind the man without a turban is a woman kneeling on the ground and putting something into a box.]]
Turban man: Nine silvers for a ham? That's too much!
No-turban: Too much? There's a monk out back 
with a ladder!

(Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...)
There's no reason to think that people throughout history didn't have just as many inside jokes and catchphrases as any modern group of high-schoolers.

{{Title text: I've looked through a few annotated versions of classic books, and it's shocking how much of what's in there is basically pop-culture references totally lost on us now.}}