'Matter of Laugh or Death,' the award-winning humor column

By Bill Dunn

Interesting observations on this thing we call life

(appearing each week in the Republican-American newspaper, Waterbury, CT)

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE TEEN KIND

I did something very frightening the other day. I agreed to visit a high school science class and give a presentation titled, “Principles of physics in the heating and air-conditioning industry.” (I’m thinking of videotaping my lecture and selling it on the Internet. It should be a big hit—especially with insomniacs desperate for some slumber.)

The frightening aspect here is not the fact I make my living working with the mathematical formulas which apply to heat transfer and air flow (although my daughters theorize that years ago some judge must have decided not to send me to prison but instead to sentence me to my job). The frightening thing here is that I agreed to be in the same room with thirty teenagers.

Now mind you, I have nothing against teenagers—other than the way they look, they way they talk, and the way they think. I can handle teenagers, but only one or two at a time. However, thirty at once? What was I thinking?!

Just before my presentation, I began to panic. “What am I doing?” I thought. “Why did I agree to do this? I’d be better off jumping into the Piranha Tank at the aquarium—at least the piranha don’t have pierced eyebrows, tattoos, and green hair.”

You see, I know a little something about teenagers. After all, I was one a few centuries ago. I know what teenagers are like when they gather into their wolf packs.

Once in a while I have to drive one of my daughters to high school in the morning. There are always packs of teenagers milling around by the road, smoking cigarettes, giving each other impromptu piercings and tattoos, and firing their automatic weapons at passing birds. It looks like they’re in training to be the featured subjects on a future episode of “Cops.”

One time a couple of years ago an especially snarly looking teenage wolf pack stood right in the middle of the driveway so I couldn’t get into the parking lot. When I rolled down my window and said, “Uh, excuse me…” one of the students unleashed a torrent of profanity which would have made a professional hockey player blush. After a while, some of the boys also joined her.

When we finally got to the parking lot, I asked my daughter, “Who was that?”

She answered, “Oh, that’s the president of the National Honor Society.” When she saw my stunned expression, she added, “Well, the bad kids don’t even come to school.”

So, when I entered the science classroom to make my presentation, I was expecting the worst. Instead, I was completely stunned. The teenagers were—I don’t believe I’ve ever before used this expression in the same sentence with the word “teenagers”—well-behaved.

It was remarkable. Most of the kids actually paid attention to what I was saying (which is more than I can say about many of my clients). They seemed fairly interested in the topic, and afterward, a few came up and asked me questions, took a closer look at the mechanical drawings I had brought along, and explained they were looking forward to studying engineering in college.

I kept glancing toward the door, certain I’d see Rod Serling standing there, slowly intoning, “Expecting the lion’s den, he found instead…good kids. He has entered…the Twilight Zone.” (All together now: “Dee-de-dee-de, dee-de-dee-de.”)

As I walked out to my car, I shook my head in amazement. Those kids were nothing like I expected. I started the car and began to drive away. “Does this mean there’s some hope for our country after all?” I wondered. “Does this mean that teenagers, behind all the piercings and tattoos and profanity and green hair, are really, deep down, disciplined and responsible and ready to take their place one day soon as productive citizens in society? Does this mean I can change my pessimistic outlook for the future of America?”

Just then I encountered a hostile wolf pack in the driveway, and answered my rhetorical questions: “Nah.”

©2003