Back to Reality

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Labour Day weekend has come and gone. It's fun and sort of sad all at once. Let down and anticipation. The end of play and the beginning of work.

Unlike Ian, I always loved going back to school. There was a wonderful anticipation, the buying of supplies, the new notebooks an pencils, pulling out my pencil case (a leather one which my mother bought me in first grade and which I used until the end of university and still have today), the new clothes - and later the new uniform (bleh), it was all such fun. And I'm sure my mom was overjoyed too, as mothers are no doubt wont to be after a summe spent with the kids.


By the end of summer I was somewhat bored (though I'd never ever have admitted it) and school was a welcome distraction - if only for all the new books I'd get to read. I couldn't wait for the first visit to the library in the school year. Yes I was one of those nerdy kids who loved school and thrived in that environment. Even the fact of having to sit still for hours was overwhelmed by the sheer joy of learning.

For years after having finished school, and into my working life September still meant back to school, albeit in a nostalgic way. I'd wake up one morning with the anticipation of a new year, just to realize that, damn, it was just another work day at the office.

Now back to school means a whole different thing.

Back to school means my favourite lunch spots overrun with screeching teenagers. With boys in pants seven times too big hanging below (yes, BELOW) their butts. A couple of years ago, they'd just hang low on their hips so you could see their skivvies, now, they're under their butts, yep, they are. How the hell they stay up is a mystery I'll no doubt never solve (unless someone out there knows and can share with me?). And they don't even have good butts to show off for the most part. And I can't wait to see someone lose them sometime. But I digress yet again.

And the simpering teenage girls with their too tight clothes - how is it that female clothes seem to shrink proportionally to the "enbiggening" of male attire? If we go back to early 90s huge tunics and such, will mens fashion shrink again? The girls who shriek and holler even louder than the boys and have the added interest of way too much perfume and underwear hanging out?

So yeah, sharing my favourite lunch spots with a bunch of screeching teenagers, and the bus home with another batch of them. I'm sure I was no better at that age (though I was a nerd, so perhaps I was marginally better, the nerds seem to be) relatively speaking, but I'm my age now dammit and I've earned the right to bitch about the lack of manners and general bad attitude of the young'uns, yes I have. They're a bunch of uncivilized heathens they are.

And people, I have to admit I loathe them with a vengeance these days, they drive me fucking insane. I don't hate individual kids - well not most of them at any rate, though some deserve to be hated. Individually, they're usually quite entertaining, but as a group - damn they're annoying. If there is a civilizing influence in their lives, I shudder to think what they would be without it.

And so, I contemplate another 10 months of hellish lunch hours. Or of brown bagging it - I dunno which is the worst alternative. I imagine that I'll eventually get used to them again, it's either that or I'll have to jam my plastic fork up my nose and pull out my brains.
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