Not Very Subtle

Whenever I find myself babysitting, I am comforted by the knowledge that my nieces are not yet old enough to be slick when it comes to scheming. Sure, they will try to deny that they were the ones who threw the food on the floor but it's pretty hard to stick to that story when you are the only one in the living room and the empty plate is still in your hand. The good news is that if my recent interactions with teenagers are any indication, I have another decade of being smarter than them to look forward to. You see, the mild winter has led to one unforeseen downside: a lot more teenagers hanging around outside all the time. You expect to deal with this when it is summer and they have no school to worry about, but usually you get a couple months off during the winter. However, it has been so warm lately that every Friday night I have to wade through them as they hang outside local stores. They are there because they want someone, anyone, to buy them something they aren't old enough to legally purchase themselves and what better way to get something you aren't supposed to have than by asking a total stranger to do you an illegal favor? (Like I said, not the brightest.) Not only was I not this kid in high school, I also avoided hanging out with this kid. But, that doesn't mean they don't amuse me.

I was heading into a gas station convenience store on Friday when I saw a pack of them hanging around the side of the store, in a group just large enough to attract attention. I mean, what could possibly be suspicious about 6 teenagers milling around in a tight circle, each one periodically whipping their head around to make sure no cops were coming? That is a look that screams, "everything over here is on the up-and-up!" If the acoustics in that parking lot had been better I would have sworn they were simply a choir in need of practice space. They looked to be around 14 or 15, which is typically the age for this kind of activity. You aren't old enough to drive around, so you walk to one place and stay there for the rest of the night, plus you haven't been in high school long enough to make friends with the seniors who have friends in college who will buy you beer, so you are forced to beg from strangers. Previously, we've also talked about how if you are trying to do something illegal the key is to not do it in an area that looks like the kind of place illegal activity takes place and specifically not the back of a gas station. Those kids are clearly not loyal readers of the blog.

Now, because just this kind of activity resulted in the death of a kid I went to school with when I was still in junior high I'm a little sensitive to this kind of thing and had they been trying to purchase beer I would have said something. But what this group wanted was cigars. (Again, doesn't feel like these criminal masterminds thought this all the way through. I would be fascinated to know what they planned to tell their parents at the end of the night, as cigars make you stink down to your bones.) They had already talked/bribed some older kid into doing the purchasing for them and by the time I had reached the counter the kid was in line right in front of me. After asking the clerk behind the counter for half a dozen cigars (as you do, because gas station cigars are obviously such high quality that you buy them in bulk), the kid was very proud to produce his ID, which led me to believe he was about 18 years and one day old. Given the level of scrutiny usually seen at gas stations I was impressed that the clerk even asked for an ID. That being said, I highly doubt he would have cared that these cigars were about to be handed to kids who were not old enough to buy them, which just makes the fact that these kids were trying to "hide" off on one side of the building all that more laughable.

But wait, I haven't gotten to the best part yet...

As I was pumping my gas I could see the kids off to the side, clearly very proud of what they had just pulled off. Honestly, I don't think the crew at the end of "Ocean's 11" was this pumped about their heist. As such, they were being really loud, as they were apparently unaware that sounds travels or that they could very easily still get in trouble for being underage. (I've stated many times that I would never want to be a cop because it must be a thankless job, but in that moment I would have given anything to have a badge. I think if I had gone over and told them I was a cop half the crew would have wet themselves.) However, I didn't need to do anything because as I was thinking about that, I heard the greatest thing ever: "Hey, does anyone have a lighter?" followed by 10 seconds of dead silence. Yeah, apparently none of them remembered that it takes fire to light up a cigar. The joyous mood was immediately snuffed out. I almost laughed until I remembered a sobering thought: the kids of today are the leaders of tomorrow. We might be screwed.