In sparking a new catch phrase, is this just a coincidence, or yet another example of the Hundred Monkey Phenomenon?

This question has to do with how urban catch phrases permeate throughout culture. I believe this thread will contribute to spreading a new catch phrase invented in the mind of my mother. Perhaps you’ve heard it before. But if so, how would you explain it coming to my mother on the spur of the moment without any previous exposure to it?

Mom works at the dry cleaners with a teenage slacker who doesn’t understand what good work ethics are. The teen often complains and lashes out at the older employees for putting up with some of the boss’s demands. A few months ago, the teen was bitching about something and made the comment to my mother:
“None of you understand me because you’re all just too Old and Worn Out to know any better.”

Mom laughs and looks at her elderly coworker and says at the spur of the moment: “Ya hear that Peggy, we’re just a couple of O-Wo’s”.

She came home that night to tell me about the incident and I said: “Mom that’s kinda catchy… O-Wo… did you just make that up or did you hear it somewhere?”

She assured me that it just popped into her head at that moment. Now she’s earned the new nickname O-Wo and it gets a good laugh every time I call her that.
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Fast forward to this mornings news and political analysis. Two months later I hear a commentator referring to the “Old Wolves” on Capital Hill as “O-Wo’s”.
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Have you ever heard this phrase before? Is it a proper description for the Old Wolves or a teenagers perception of an “Old and Worn Out” elderly person?