June 22- Getting old

Let me preface this by saying that I am still a relatively young 25 years old...

Alright, here we go: as I proctored Regents exams, I decided that a few notable differences between high school kids in my day (a whopping 7 years ago) and high school kids today have made me feel really old (and, oddly enough, fairly ornery). I have nothing to say for myself other than that I hope that I wasn't this defiantly persistent in being uncool to my elders (though I am SURE that this is actually what happened, since my claim to fame during my senior year was wearing pajama pants nearly every day to school...how I managed to get a response from women in high school is beyond me). With that said, here we go....a list of just a few things about "youngsters" that amuse me:

1) Wearing pants/shorts that display undergarments- this happened in my heyday, and it was bafflesome then, so of course as I have become older and more mature, it has become a real problem for me. What about it is comfortable, really? My other thought on this is that when it comes time to pull up pants with boxers that are on display, wouldn't it create havoc in one's nether region? I just don't get it.

2) Absurd facial hair- the chinstrap really didn't burst out on the scene until I was in college, and so I blame the omnipresent and timeless tradition of dressing and trying to appear older than your age now that the plague of a style has hit high schools.

3) Driving absurdly fast in parking lots- This trend usually is curbed by the time a kid has to pay for his or her own brakes/transmission. If this moment never comes, you can tell because it's the kids who get the car from their parents and use whatever job money/allowence/inheritence to put into useless accessories for their car. This is precisely the sort of thing that isn't the cause of, but certainly didn't help solve, the recession.

4) The unbathed look- I can understand unkempt/artsy/trying to pull off an "I don't care about how I look and you'll know that because I spent so much time pulling off the 'I don't have time for my looks' look" image...heck, I've grown my hair out over the course of almost every semester of school. The problem starts when the look is taken too seriously and is achieved through not showering. I'm sorry, but at some point, bathing for teenagers is ABSOLUTELY a must!

5) Inappropriate use of the word "gay" (see, "fag"/"faggot"/"homo", et. al.)- This sort of thing is really uncalled-for and misguided. While some may view it as an insult, put-down, or just being downright offensive, I tend to operate on a more basic level: it's uncreative...as in, you have no other way to describe your dislike for something so you attach a completely unrelated word that has an entirely different connotation in order to convey disapproval. Bulk up the vocab, kid. Ignorance is the opiate of the masses, and so at that age, it happens.