So what do you do when you feel like everything is screwed up and they
should just drop the bomb so we can all go home? Rodney certainly didn't
know the answer to that question, nor did anyone who'd ever given him a
lecture about life. In fact, none of them had really given him anything
of value to take with him from their little presentation in the assembly
hall, or the on the spot lecture from whoever felt they should pull the
young 'un into line.
In the end he had to find his own answers, because no one else was helping. After all, how do you look in the mirror and say that you're a free thinker if all you've ever done is believe what they told you was true? All his life people had been imparting their wonderful knowledge to him. Don't drink, don't watch too much TV, don't get depressed, don't smoke, don't do drugs, don't stress about your life, always look both ways before crossing the road, get a girlfriend, go outside and get away from the computer, don't get suicidal, don't have sex without precautions if you really must have sex (you're so young, you can't possibly understand how serious it is!), go and talk to real people but don't go out at night because things are so dangerous these days......
OK, he had to admit some of it made sense, but really; like they knew what it was like to be young these days! The catch-cry of every generation, naturally. But somehow it really seemed justified for Rodney, or more widely, Rodney's generation. His parents grew up in naive days of walking home alone at 11pm through any part of town, when unemployment was barely even a recognised concept and the only danger associated with sex was pregnancy. How can they understand the pressures of growing up with things like AIDS or unemployment hanging over your head? They say they can but that's a pretty major claim for anyone to make when they don't really know much about the topic at hand.
Of course, if Rodney ever said that to anyone they'd say he was acting like every other teenager - ie that he thought he knew everything and had the idea that he was immortal. That wasn't it of course, he just didn't think that his parents understood what it was like for his generation... not meaning it critically, they just grew up in a different time. Add to that the fact that there was no possible way that their time could have been plagued by the same stresses. They could expect to find jobs, didn't have to pay for Uni, had never heard of AIDS and didn't face a world where no man and few women will risk going to the aid of a lost and crying child for fear of allegations of abduction or paedophilic intention or something.
Of course, their generation would never have done some of the things that Rodney or his friends did... or at least not as widely. It was documented fact that Rodney's generation grew up faster, got more cynical and played much harder than previous generations. For Rodney, the presence of a "happy room" at parties was not exactly an unusual phenominon; and he had been offered harder drugs on a couple of occasions. "They" reckoned binge drinking was worse than ever before, too... well, that was probably true.
But there were some areas that Rodney found frustrating, like the way suicide and depression were treated as such taboo subjects; almost as if the problem would go away if no-one spoke of them. Which was basically the same as "bad things only happen to other people". Rodney knew several people who'd been affected by suicide; who'd known people who'd killed themselves, or attempted it themselves... Things that the previous generation really didn't have to deal with very often - if at all.
Whatever the solution was, Rodney certainly wasn't listening to some lecture from this fool of a guidance counsellor. What the hell could someone who'd ended up working as a guidance counsellor know about choosing a career, anyway?? And this video presentation that Rodney and his mates were about to sit through... sure they were better than most things about drinking and drugs and stuff, but let's face it they still hark to the false world where someone gives a shit. They still wanted to tell him that things were sugar and spice like they were in the good ol' days. All in all there were too many freeze frames of shiny happy teens, or those shots in series of some guy sitting alone and depressed in a corner; only to have some gorgeous girl come and cheer him up and make him walk back into the party where everyone greeted him warmly.
"Just like your average, everyday teens; aren't they?" Rodney muttered to his friends, who started laughing quietly.
"Wooha, I bet those two never had a pimple in their fuckin' life!" he continued as a perfect couple flashed onto the screen. He was amazed at the way these life education people never allowed for anyone that was single, like NEVER. The scenes depicted always showed happy couples, or, for variety, two singles becoming a couple.
"Wow! MORE happy perfect teens! They must have raided KFC commercials for these guys." he whispered. A few more comments sent his friends over the final edge to pissing themselves laughing.
"RODNEY! You and your mates shut up and stop disturbing everyone else who might be trying to get somthing from this! Get the hell outside and stay there until this is over, and have a think about being so damn selfish!" the Guidance Counsellor continued to rant on at them until they left the hall.
The small group of boys stood outside in uncomfortable silence for a moment, the way you do when your joke got you into trouble. There was a slight feeling of annoyance with Rodney, but not much... hell, he'd been funny - and right.
Rodney studied the retreating guidance cousellor's back before turning to his friends and delivering his best Jello Biafra:
"STAY IN YOUR HOMES! Do not attempt to think. If you talk in a shitty video, you will be shot!"
They laughed, and the annoyance was gone. Once again the group was close. As well as that they had the status of getting busted by the counsellor; which, as everybody knows, comes to nothing. You just don't get referred to as an "ambassador for the school" too much.
Of course, the Personal Development Officer has his little laugh too, when he writes up your personality profile.
Finally the bell rang, and the boys trooped off to English with their copies of 1984.