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Confessions of a recovering teenager
When does an American become an adult? When they can get sentenced as an adult, marry, join the army... or when they can legally buy a drink and rent a car?
by Ashley 'Danger' Meeks
It's the simplest questions that never seem to get answered here in Babylon.
Like, if everybody who's running the show is actually a dictatorial Christian hardliner, why don't we just say so, change all the rules till America is a Christian wet dream, ban abortion outright, give Hollywood a good spanking and finally ban them dances the kids go to on Friday nights (they never stay two feet apart like they're supposed to).
How about someone in power answering this simple question...
When does someone become an adult?
Is it when they're 12... and can get sentenced as an adult by a court just for shooting up a few wide-eyed earth science kids during 7th period?
Is it when they're 13... and they get those funny feelings and get all oily and smelly and belligerent?
Is it when they're 16... and can drop out of school, move out, get behind the wheel of a car or the controls of a plane?
Is it 17... when they graduate high school, when they can get into an R movie?
Is it 18... when they can get married, gamble (in most cases, the same thing), rent a U-Haul, smoke cigarettes and join the military, go overseas and happy-slap brown men into sodomising themselves with a rolled up copy of Details?
Is it 19... when they can join the ranks of the cocktail waiters of the world and serve Cosmos for soaking dollar bills?
Is it 21... when they can drink alcohol?
Is it 25... when they can rent a shitty little Suzuki Aero with a gammy wheel and radio stations preset to sterilized country music?
No wonder the youth of America is confused.
Having realized most of what has been our life expectancy for the bulk of our evolution, we're still not allowed to buy a bottle of Blue Rasberry Mad Dog 20/20, a flavor clearly intended for Barbie-infatuated eight-year-old girls?
Can we please settle this question once and for all with a uniform age?
NUDITY AND DYING
And while we're at it, what the fuck is the problem with nudity and dying? We come into the world naked and every one of us is killed by something - old age, mad cow prions that liquify your brain, a Steinway crashing down on us from a fifth floor window. But we're not allowed to see nipples on TV, no matter the context. After "Ren and Stimpy," seeing a titty's a big deal?
There should be more of both of them, nakedness and killing.
Can you imagine living in the kind of world where someone who insisted on answering her cell phone during a movie and holding a loud conversation about skiing over Spring Break would be taken out in the alley and shot execution style, her head mounted on a pike in the lobby of the theater as an example?
These aren't complicated requests. And can you imagine - the cinematic experience becoming fun again?
About the author
Ptiza Odelay was created in a factory by Nazi scientists during World
War II. She was to be the ultimate weapon against the Allies, but
before she grew into maturity in her birthing tank, the war ended and
the project was scrapped. Years later, she was found still in her tank
in a hidden sub-basement of a warehouse in Berlin and inadvertently
shipped to the United States. During transit the casing of the tank
was ruptured and she was born seemingly in her early twenties with all
of the knowledge of mankind programmed into her brain. She speaks
eighty languages and has been known to crush diamonds with her bare
hands. She is wanted in twenty countries and was last seen diving into
an active volcano somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. In her spare time,
she writes popular children's fiction, erotica and groundbreaking
journalism under the name Ashley "Danger" Meeks.Read her 'Confessions of a Recovering Teenager' column
