Teen-Blaine and the Escape of the Sane

Teenagers.  Seriously God, what were you thinking?

Maybe the explanation is that it's a divine but careless chemical experiment.  Someone stacked too many beakers of combustible hormone cocktails - in a meth lab - and right over a fault line - and the next emotional tremor is going to shake the room and tip all those chemicals into a giant mixing vat.

When that happens, the synapses snap into an ADD-like frenzy of neuronic activity.   While mine are erratically sparking like your grandpa's old lawn mower, theirs are red-bulling and overflowing in Niagra-like torrents of ones and zeros.  Mine are pausing on whether to choose regular or decaf.

Feeding hormones into the teen brain is like buying every twelve-year-old a new yellow Camaro, throwing them the keys, and saying, "I bet you can't get that thing over 90."  I mean, whoever set this thing up could have just used a little restraint.

“They are a plague upon humanity,” I lament, exhaling and complaining to my wife, who is more skilled with 10-somethings than I am.

Yeah, I know, it's only temporary.  I can see the horizon, and, although distant, it looks like a teen-free Camelot.  Until then, I can only watch for the Monty Python weight to fall from the sky - and seek escape into my underground bunker.

An escapist's world of cowboys and Jack Reachers. Of UFO's and ghost podcasts. 

I can escape.  But I can't win.

Because my teens have used their Dr. Evil minds to develop an amazing skill; a David Blaine-like sleight of hand.  The ability to make responsibilities disappear like doves into top hats.  To put your account number on their overdrawn bank statement.  

The trick is to make a typical teen problem, let's say - hmmm - an I-phone dropped into the pool, a speeding ticket, a suspicious substance, a bad grade, an emotional outburst, a general (and common) lapse in common sense, a bad attitude, etc. – not really their problem.  

During the discussion, the object of discussion begins to blur.  Mesmerized, the simple adult's eyes are drawn to a fancy silk handkerchief waved by the teen.  As the distraction is regarded, the real problem disappears.  From the silk, out pops a rabbit.   A cuddly little rabbit which further diverts the attention of the audience. 

Now, somehow (although no-doubt facilitated by hormones and energy drinks) the focus is switched to the parent - who until then had merely been the observer of the problem.  The magician now has a rube volunteer take the stage in his place - to be sawed in half or to climb into a box through which sharps swords will be driven.

The teen and the adult's positions are now reversed, and the observer's own actions are placed on the scales of justice.

This illusion is all the work of the magical teen-Blaine, who abruptly vanishes in a column of fog and is transported from stage to audience.  

Now, justice is measured by the audience – has there been fairness, impartial temperament, rationality, and adequate sympathy?  Is the observer even capable of meeting the high standards expected by the audience?  What about the observer's gestures?  Eye movements?  Vocal tone?  Were there hidden meanings behind the observer's choice of words?  And so on. 

The audience seems to agree, and settles upon the just vindication of the teen.

But now there is a growing rumble off stage.  The audience feels that somehow, the observer has caused this problem in the first place.

I have?

Wow. 

Time to escape to my ghost stories and crop circles.  Or maybe that 3-hour podcast on the Kennedy assassination.

Just like me to walk away from my troubles.