Just gobsmacked

Junior regaled us last week with the events at a school sports carnival. J and I were waiting for him to tell us how he did in the 100 metres, 200 metres, long jump and so on. And we waited. And waited.

Eventually, we got an answer as to what he did all day.

"We sat around doing nothing, then a lady lent us a basketball, so we spent the afternoon playing basketball".

Hello? Wasn't this supposed to be an athletics day? What has basketball got to do with athletics?

I assumed that the teachers had taken over running the show, so I said, "In my day, the year 12's ran the show. The prefects in each house decided who was going to run in each heat, or which field event you would do, and that was that".

I had stupidly assumed that in this age of uselessness, the prefects no longer had a role in running this sort of show, and the teachers were too overrun with work to get the kids organised.

Junior's answer just about knocked J and I off our chairs: "Yeah, the prefects run the show, but they spent all day running around trying to get kids to participate".

WHAT???? They had to ASK!!!!!

J just about blew a gasket. When we were at school, there was none of this "asking" rubbish - there was doing. As in, "You will do this or that. You may not like it, you may not be any good at it, but you will do it. Anyone who objects can take it up with Brad."

Brad* being a none-too-intelligent year 12 from a sheep farm, who was quite capable of carrying a keg under each arm - and running with them - and who also harboured a strange fondness for thumping younger kids who failed to "respect mah authoritay".

I am still in shock. I am gobsmacked. Who said teenagers have the common sense and wisdom to make decisions? Bugger me, I certainly didn't at that age.

J was most riled because these little cotton balls are going to get the shock of their lives when they hit the workforce. They'll be told to do this or do that and they'll say they don't want to, and then they'll be standing on the street with all their possessions in a bag wondering what happened; and then complaining what a cruel bastard their ex-boss was.

*Brad was in fact a composite every year 12 at our school. They all seemed to take a perverse delight in thumping arrogant little snots. Funnily enough, when I reached year 12, I developed a particular knack for chasing down, catching and whacking snotty little gobshites.