Epic Tales of Hyperbole

Judy and I went to see Sweet Charity at Butler High School last night. Never-mind the strangeness of teenagers playing very adult roles… The experience was interesting. We saw many strange and interesting things, few of which had anything to do with the play. I’m not saying the play was uninteresting, its just that the surrounding landscape was much more so.

That was the first High School musical I’d ever attended. I actually quite enjoy the theater, I find plays and musicals very interesting. And this one was pretty good, the lead wasn’t the best out of the singers , but was a pretty good actress. But like I said, that wasn’t the most interesting part.

The most interesting thing was watching the hordes of teenagers interact. I do have quite a bit of interaction with teenagers, quite a few of our volunteers are and even a few volunteer leaders. But this was different. On Sundays we are in an adult environment (sorta) we take our work serious and the teenage volunteers take it just as serious. We have fun, we joke around, but if its ever at the cost of excellence adaptations are made. But this wasn’t a Sunday, and these weren’t kick butt Elevation Church volunteers; this was a mass of high schoolers on their own turf. I mean, to compare, this was like going on an African safari and standing in a den of lions. Well, maybe a group of monkeys would be a better description.

Individually I see every teenager as a bundle of potential that can be molded into greatness. In a horde of peers, without adults, guidance, or voice of reason, its hard to believe that they can even survive.

This interaction of unsupervised teenagers is both humorous and somewhat disgusting. To follow the earlier comparison, its was like when you go to the zoo and check out the monkey cages… The interaction is hilarious, the monkeys are picking bugs off each-other, grabbing each-other, groping each-other, sniffing their butts and passing out (I’ll let you decide which is about monkeys and which is about teenagers) and then they start flinging poo at the glass and it starts out funny but starts to get pretty gross.

I find myself like an old man, look at them with the same contempt I once (as a teenager) used to people my age. The couples were the most interesting. The funny part was watching the social awkwardness of a boy not entirely sure what to do with the girl sitting next to him. The disgusting part was watching the social awkwardness of a boy who thought he knew everything he should be doing with the girl next to him (none of which would keep him alive if he were with MY daughter). There were the quiet gorillas, the funny monkeys, the occasional goofy orangutan, and of course the chest beating baboons that have life all figured out (I may have been one of those a long long time ago).

Just when I thought one more roll would do irreversible damage to my eyes, I would see I nice boy unassumingly holding a girls hand and I thought maybe, just maybe there’s a chance for them after all.