Fair, is Fair

You know, I was a real shit when I was a kid, I won’t deny it. I behaved in an antisocial manner, and generally had some real unhealthy disdain for authority, which pretty well made me an average teenager. However, I distinctly do not recall treating my own neighborhood like a garbage can.

I did not eat my pizza slice, and launch the paper tray upon the ground. I did not throw my Big-Mac Styrofoam containers to the wind when I was finished inhaling my grease-ball burger. And I did not wield a spray-can for fun, tagging every motionless object in my path.

Teenagers today however, seem to be fucking litterbugs, and graffiti ‘artists’. And their parents don’t seem to give a shit.

At the end of last years school session, after the local high-school let out for the summer, I was lucky enough to find a model-student’s crumpled-up report card amongst the rubbish in the local playground. If this discovery seems to you to be just an amusing confirmation of the state of adolescence, I will correct you and state that to me it was a true gift from above. What made the gift special was that it came with the students name and address right in the upper left hand corner. With the litany of D’s and F’s, came a way for me to reach out and touch this delinquent, right where it’d be the most entertaining – the dinner table.

Imagine little Billy’s expression, when her mom and dad opened up the daily mail, to discover her previously discarded report-card, with a little note attached..letting them know it was ‘lost’ in the park, amongst the graffiti, litter and cigarette butts. They would be oh-so proud. The kid would shit his pants.

Yes, I spent the 51 cents and happily mailed that report card, along with a bunch of cigarette butts to the proud mom & dad.
Just last week, providence brought me some more good news…

Here is the letter I sent to the next set of proud parents…


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dear Mr. and/or Mrs. Mutch-Harrap,

I was recently visiting the squalor that has become my neighborhood park, busying myself by cleaning up the mountains of garbage strewn about by the teenagers who frequent the area.

As I loaded hundreds of cigarette butts and the fast-food waste wrappers into the unused nearby garbage container, I came across a job application that your son must have accidentally crumpled up and thrown under the jungle-gym. Inside the job application was a small plastic baggie that local drug dealers use to package their wares.

I note with some amusement, that your son Steven’s job aspirations seem to match his obvious zest for life.

Steven is optimistically hoping for a fifty cent raise over his previous vocation, that of ‘Carver’ at the since defunct ‘Circle T Grillhouse Buffet’.
I suppose losing one bad paying menial position, automatically entitles the delusional applicant to a raise at the next dead-end job. I see he has checked the box looking for ‘Full-Time Employment’.
I suppose grade 12 was out of the question then?
A Trade?
A Clue?

Shoot for the stars Steven! Anything is possible!

Perhaps even losers who sit all day in parks (designed for children), smoking drugs and littering, are indeed destined for greatness. Or, perhaps you and your spouse might just want to take an interest in where your son spends his time, who he spends it with, and how he fills his jam-packed days.

I have returned his resume to you. I suggest you get it off to Canadian Tire pronto. Last I checked, they were fast running out of lazy-ass employees.

I have also included the small drug-baggie for Steven. You can give it back to him, so he has somewhere to stash those big dreams of his.