Idiot Kids

Everyone knows that teenage kids are dumbasses. It's one reason we keep them locked in cages, letting them swing their tin cups against the bars every time they want more stale water for drinking. I recall my own teenage days as being one long flight of dumbassery punctuated every now and then with sleep.

However, one thing I don't remember ever doing was standing in the bed of a pickup truck tossing eggs at houses at 1 AM and falling out of said truck when my moron friends drove off to escape getting caught and then getting run over by another friend's car. Somehow, the "nihilistic vandalism followed by botched getaway" plan never got under way for me and my idiot friends. Next to the gang of kids in the article, my friends and I were a brain trust.

First, let's start with the "harmless prank" that this activity was being justified as. I've never had to clean rotting egg from my car or house, but I imagine it's an unpleasant activity. And while paintball paint may wash off a house easily, let's keep in mind that a homeowner awoken by the ruckus could easily have had an eye put out by a paintball (I don't know about you but I've never slept with goggles on). And at 1 AM I figure a number of armed homeowners might have panicked and fired real buckshot at the cars of these geniuses.

Then there's the "hey stand in the back of the truck and toss the eggs and I'll drive real quick" plan, which worked about how you'd expect. I wasn't the safest teenager way back when--I'm sure a number of my passengers didn't put on their seatbelts despite my ordering them to, and as a passenger I have on many occasions hung out the car windows and sunroofs. But then, if I were ripped apart when the car got too close to a tree branch, I would have had no one to blame but my own idiocy.

No news yet as to whether this unfortunate girl's parents are going to sue the drivers of either the truck or the other getaway car. Perhaps it's good that this happened, and taught these hooligans a lesson that they may all walk away from, and spend their days cleaning bedpans at nursing homes instead of graduating to dumber and dumber crimes. But I have a hard time gathering sympathy for people behaving badly and stupidly.