I don’t know about the kids these days

There have been plenty of times that I have boarded the train in the morning with a bunch of high school aged kids in my car. Normally there is a lot of shouting and carrying on. Occasionally there will be some chanting of school names, etc. At least I assume that it was they are doing, from what I can hear over my headphone, which are turned to full volume in an attempt to block out the kid noise. Occasionally I will see some kids shoving each other or groping some girls, or doing other rowdy kid stuff that is socially unacceptable. But as much of that kind of crap as we have all seen, I was not prepared for the events that I witnessed this morning. On my way downtown today, there was a huge group of kids that got on at 175th in the front car of the A with me. They started in with all of the activities mentioned above. I was like, “here we go” and “I hope they get out at 125.” But they didn’t get off at 125th. I think that they must have been going to the beach or something, since they were still on, when I detrained at Chambers. Anyway, all of that is beside the point. After we left the 125th St. Station, they all huddled up right in the front of the car. Mind you, I was smashed in the middle of them. What I saw next, totally blew my mind. First of all, some of the girls started pulling out mini-bottles of Bacardi and passing it around. Ok, that isn’t totally crazy, but still 9 in the morning? So there they are boozing it up. Then I notice the one of the kids on the seat pulling out a couple of blunts. He gave one to the kid sitting next to him and they both opened them and started to strip them out. I was like “am I really seeing this, right here on the A train on my way to work?” Indeed I was. After they had the blunts stripped out, everyone started passing little bags of weed over to the kids on the bench. Unbelievable! Anyway, if you have a high school aged kid that went to the beach today. Chances are, he or she is smoking a huge spliff that was manufactured right in front of my eyes on the A train today. It gives me a lot of comfort about America’s shining future.