Teens Are Necessary or Not

If something happened that prevented teenagers from working, our nation would come to a halt. That may be stretching the matter a bit, but many businesses would have a hard time providing timely service to their customers. Who would seat patrons eating at restaurants? Who would wait on tables, bus tables, deliver pizza, sack groceries, stock shelves, mow lawns, wash cars and...well, you get the idea. We depend on teenagers at just about every place we go to spend our money. That is scary if you think about it. My grandson, Brady, got a job frying chicken at PDQ. The only thing he knew about chicken was that rubber chicken that he took on every overnight church outing and church camp he attended. He might not bring home most of his clothes, but he always brought that rubber chicken home. Most teenage boys are somewhat like Brady, and those are the people working with the food we eat.

I got upset today with a teen boy when I took my car to have it washed. He took his time coming over to take my money, and then before he rang  up my ticket he just walked off without saying a word. He was gone for at least 5 minutes. I had gone back to my car to wait for him. He did remember that he had started to wait on me, and when he saw where I was, he acted like I had done something wrong.  I walked back over to him to pay. He muttered something about what I owed. I gave him a twenty. He took it and handed me my change not saying thank you, come back again or kiss my...nothing! Before my car was finished I found out that he was the manager.

The funniest thing that happened with a teenager this week was when Sherri and I went to a movie. We decided on a 2:20 movie because movies are cheaper in the afternoon, and we still get the senior discount. We walked up to the window to pay. Nobody was in line. Selling the tickets was a young, tall, skinny kid wearing black rimmed glasses. He looked smart, and he was very business like. We told him which movie we wanted to see. There was a seating chart hanging on the glass in front of where he was sitting. All of a sudden it lit up. He said, “Choose where you want to sit.”

Now this was the first time we had been asked to pick our seats. He could tell we were puzzled, so he explained that the theater had been remodeled, new seats had been installed, and the seats were being reserved to prevent over booking.  We looked at the seating chart. Every seat was vacant, and the movie was going to start in 5 minutes. I said, “You mean that with every seat available we still have to pick our seats?” He told us we did. Sherri said, “Then we will have to sit in the seat we choose, and we can’t switch seats if we decide we had rather sit somewhere else? He replied, “That’s right. You can pick any seat except these.” Pointing to a small row of seats, he told us they were for the handicapped.

We chose our seats, walked into the theater, and found our two seats. We were the only ones in there, and furthermore no one else showed up. Just the two of us sitting in our reserved seats daring not to move to another seat lest we get a seat belonging to someone else. We enjoyed the movie. The seats were great. They were very comfortable leather and reclined with a foot rest that extended out in front of us. Just like sitting in my recliner at home. I tried to make a move on Sherri, but she wouldn’t let me. Said her daddy didn’t allow stuff like that.

What would we do without our teenagers?