I’m guilty of being one of “those people” who likes to lump teenagers into one group - you know, the self-absorbed mutants who don’t care about anyone except themselves and possibly, a roughly 10-square foot radius around them. I sort of feel bad about that…after all, there are teenagers out there who are normal but for the most part, they’re just like we were when we were 17 or 18. I mean, I get that - but I also grew up in a time when adults weren’t completely enamored by everything we did and we didn’t assume everyone thought we were as amazing and wonderful as our parents did.

Having said that, I was getting my allergy shot this morning (I swear, my best stories come from that place) and the kid sitting next to me is all flipped out because he has a quiz in 20 minutes and he hasn’t studied for it at all. First off, why anyone would schedule an appointment for anything which only gives him or her a buffer of roughly -5 minutes given travel time and parking time is beyond me.

That aside, I ask the kid what his quiz is on. Turns out, it’s on 20 pages out of his American history book and omigod, that’s like an insane amount of studying to do. Uh yeah, it sure is when you have to shove it all into fifteen minutes. I told him I felt his pain, and that I have a quiz in ten days on one hundred and sixty pages out of this here marketing text, which I proudly held up for his viewing. I thought he might take the hint and realize that not everyone is interested in listening to him and I might, just perhaps, be interested in passing my own quiz. Wrong.

His eyes get about as big as silver dollars, then he shifts gears and starts talking about how he’s not worried about making it to class on time, because, “Me and my friends all drive really fast and can get anyplace in half the time of everyone else. That’s one thing we’ve all gotten really good at.” Great. That makes one thing.

Then he goes on about how for his first speeding ticket (yeah, I know…need a flowchart to keep track of this kid’s train of thought), he pulled out onto a road that he thought had a speed limit of 35 MPH but then like, he was pulled over, and gee, he didn’t know cops drove around in SUVs…and he couldn’t believe he was clocked at 50 MPH, because all of his friends in the car said he was going way slower.

This whole time I’m looking at him and thinking to myself…you are so going to fail that quiz. So I say to him, “I know you aren’t really concerned about your quiz, but I’m concerned about mine. I’m going to concentrate on my reading.” Gracious smile, followed by redirection of eyes back to my book. Having lost his captive audience, he calls his girlfriend, complains about the quiz (dude, why aren’t you even making an effort to maybe get one of the questions right?) some more and uses the word “whatever” a full fourteen times during the call.

I wonder if I can get some allergy serum mixed up which will prevent me from reacting to people the way I do. That would really be fabulous.