Doomed…

I never knew the four horsemen of the apocalypse would be a gaggle of teenage girls riding the bus from North Cambridge into Harvard station. These girls were being obnoxiously loud as teenagers are wont to do. It was the topic of their loud discussion that left me depressed and realizing that our society is doomed.

This crowd of well enough dressed teens was discussing the pending academic failure to advance of many of the people they knew. Around Rindge Blvd, the leader of the pack announced that if she had one more absence she would lose credit for the academic year and be forced to repeat. This announcement was not met with shame, rather it was met with inquiries on how she was able to skip out of class as much as she did. The important lesson for the others was learning which methods were most effective in getting out of class.

The really disheartening part of the conversation was the discussion about how the parents of these errant youths react to their children’s truancy. One girl reported that here parents asked if she was going to school. When informed that, no, the child would not go, the parents then assigned chores to be completed prior to the return home of the parent. All of the kids agreed that they never did those chores.

About the time the bus hit Porter Square, the kids had moved onto discussing what they did instead of the above mentioned chores. One girl reported that she had to watch her TV shows. She then rattled off a string of talk shows identified by the hosts’ first names (i.e. Oprah, Montel, Tyra, etc.) A second girl agreed with the first that it was an excellent line up that precluded the ability to get any chores done. The third, and obvious mental achiever of the group, declared those shows came on too early and she slept through them all.

In my mind, I was hoping this was some sort of sociology experiment the girls were running. They had agreed to take over the back of the bus where a single patron was riding. Then they would proceed to have the most ignorant conversation possible. I hoped they were testing to see exactly when I would either get up and move, or more likely start weeping for this nation’s future.

Eventually the bus made it to my stop, Waterhouse Street, and I exited through the rear door. I was struck by the irony of this uncaring ingnorance on display as the bus rolled on into Harvard Station. I try not to be a snob. I worked my through high school and put myself through college. I started at a community college and finally finished after nine years at a state university. I try not to hold elitist views, but I came from a family in which education was prized. All of my father’s sisters have advanced degrees, one is an administrator at a major midwestern university and another is a retired school principal. After my father retired from the military, he became a high school history teacher. My sister is an elementary school teacher. So to be amid these girls for whom education held no intrinsic value was just too much.