Teenophobia

I'm surrounded by people of almost every age group.  I work with people ranging from their mid-twenties to mid-sixties.  All my friends have young children, most of them toddlers, but some as old as 8 or 9.  There's only one demographic that is so alien to me that any close encounter with them completely freaks me out.  Teenagers.  I see these little bastards tearing around town occasionally (helmet-less...which is fine).  I see the "School Xing" signs and I speed up.  I don't know what it is but I don't like 'em.  A few weeks ago this one little fucker was riding his bike on a sidewalk where Liam was playing and I thought that if he got too close I'd have to push him into oncoming traffic.  I kind of fantasized about that for a little too long.  I don't know why I've developed this blood-boiling hatred for teens, I'm not that old.  Hell, I was a teenager as recently as 1994!  Is it just that my experience with them is so limited these days, or is it because they're EVIL!?  Regardless, I don't want Liam becoming one.  I'm going to fight it.  Or if I can't stop it I don't want to see it.  I figure I can ship him off to prep school where he'll never talk to girls, have floppy hair, wear navy sweaters, and learn to become a kick-ass oarsman like his daddy.  Then when he's twenty he'll be allowed home for the holidays.

I've been dwelling on this because this past weekend my very sweet niece (there are always exceptions to the rule) had her 16th birthday party at our house because we have a pool.  As soon as the strange creatures her age started arriving I decided it was time to go spend an hour getting ice.