Tell Off a Teen
I can’t decide if it’s because kids really are getting ruder or I am just morphing into an old fart, but getting on a bus packed with teenagers has become a trying experience.
It’s bad for the blood pressure, I’m sure. Never mind cutting out butter; people who want to keep their ticker in good order should cut out interactions with gangs of teens who are high on Red Bull but low on manners.
That tinny music they play from their mobile phones. (Are they too cool for headphones?) Their lack of a volume knob for their voices. Their refusal to say thanks to the driver as they get on the bus, far less when they get off, as we used to do back in the Golden Age of Decent Kids. (That’s a joke, yes. We had bad habits too.)
Earlier this week, one of these gruff bus-riders pushed me over the edge with his behaviour. But he taught me a lesson too. Which is that us grown-ups have got to be more pushy and disciplining with other people’s kids.
It was end-of-the-school-day time, always a bad time to get in a bus. Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out at 3.30pm.
The bus was pretty full. I was standing. So was an old lady. Ever so nicely, she asked one of the seated teens if he would mind giving her his seat. I was irritated that she had to ask, but I became apoplectic over what happened next: the boy stood up for her and tutted as he did so.
Tutted. Out loud. So that she would hear him. So that she would feel like it was totally out of order for her to want to rest her creaking bones at the expense of his right to stretch his gangly limbs.
I lost it. I told him off. Actually, I shouted at him. “Don’t tut at the lady”, I said. “That’s a really stupid and rude thing to do.”
He look startled. “And she shouldn’t have had to ask you for your seat. You should have offered it. That’s what young people do for older people.”
He was mortified. He looked like he had never been told off before. His gormless countenance gave way to a stung look. I almost felt sorry for him, but then remembered what an annoying runt he had just been.
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