Reasons to Hate Teenagers

Those of you who know me know that I spend a lot of my time with teenagers. I'm an SAT tutor, so I'm constantly inundated with teenage stress, teenage angst and teenage love. And to tell you the truth, I get along well with teenagers. They seem to like me, they laugh at my jokes, and I understand (perhaps more than their tyrannical parents) how hard it can be to have the whole of your life stretching in front of you, waiting on you to begin.


The one thing I have against teenagers, however, is the way they dress. In my opinion, a lot of teenagers don't understand just how blessed they are. As a teenager, you are at the time of your life where everything is exactly where it should be, and things are clean because your mother wills it so: you haven't yet eaten yourself through freshman year, you haven't yet been forced to forego washing your hair or clothes for a day or three in order to better understand the works of John Milton. As a teenager, it is your duty to dress in a way that celebrates your body, because, well, bitches, it ain't gonna be that way for long. Velour sweatsuits just don't cut it when you look lovely with little to no effort. And no, that doesn't mean I advocate forced mini-skirts for every girl (although, if I was instantly granted the body I had when I was about 14, I would wear nothing but a bathing suit for the rest of my life). There is a tasteful way to show things off.


And my young little nubile ladies, it's name is Abercrombie and Fitch:

See these guys? They want you to pony up the $40 for the Abercrombie logo-ed sweatshirt. And you should. Because when you get to be my age, you're going to want to go to Abercrombie so bad that it freaking hurts, but you won't be able to because you're old, chubby, and your ears smart at the loud music they play. You'll be scared of the manicured, bronzed employees with their artfully torn jeans and gelled hair. But when you're a teenager, you don't have to be scared. You're their bread and butter--you can step into the softcore porn covered walls and smile at the employees and they will help you and not give you the stink eye because you're a size 10, and thus, the fattest thing in the world.

My love of Abercrombie reaches back into my own teenagerdom when I forced my mother to drive me three hours to the West Town Mall in Knoxville, TN to do my back to school shopping because no other mall had my special store. There I would spend child support check after child support check, all on things that had the word "Abercrombie" tatooed over my chest. My mother hated the catalogs and the pornish pictures, but she would stand back and let me spend the money anyway, comforting herself with a Cinnabon and Origins face cream. I remember her buying me a pair of the jeans for Christmas, and how I wore them to various high school sporting events, and felt they were my "lucky jeans" for reasons that went beyond high school sports.

And that is probably why I want this little $60 shirt so freaking much.

And I can't buy it. Because I'm not 16 any more. I'm an old fattie. Sigh.

Damn teenagers. I hope you all get 400's on the SAT.