Ales and Ailments

Last night I shared an ale with some new young(ish) acquaintances, expecting some insightful discussion on the day's brain molding, based around Othello and T.S. Eliot. Instead I received an insight into the ailments of today's youth culture.

Conversation flowed with stories of rural and urban heroics (mostly based around urban myth and their believability needing to be ascertained through the filter of accepted hyperbole).

To understand how unfulfilled my conservative Christian choice of adolescent behaviour was, the following catalogue demonstrates an acknowledgement of what I already new about modern secular attitudes, but in my everyday world am able to insulate myself from:

1. Acceptance of teenage sexual activity as a matter of course, with no moral context or need for remorse or ashamedness.

2. The prominence of alcohol abuse and the need for drunkenness in a bored teenagers life.

3. Drug use as an accepted diversion from the realities of this world.

4. Run ins with the police due to poor timing, stupidity or boundary pushing - usually with no premeditation.

The following are activities, with the same caveat of believability that I really feel I missed out on, but now I have a number of stories that can begin with - I knew someone once who...

1. ....kidnapped 60 garden gnomes in one night - and his mother made him return them to the police station. After 3 months no one had claimed them and they have been in his families back yard for 10 years, as an army of witnesses to teenage folly.

2. ... nearly drowned in a sheep dipping race when falling (due to drunkenness) backwards off the rail at a paddock party

3. ...had a house demolition party with a $20 sedan and a rental house that was to be pulled down the next day

etc

Miss Bennet and Mr Darcy await.

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