The other day, I was walking to school from my friend’s North Oakland apartment and I had… The other day, I was walking to school from my friend’s North Oakland apartment and I had to pass Oakland Catholic High School.

I hail from Washington, D.C. — actually just outside; a place called Fairfax, Va. — and the kids who attend my high school are messed up. I can still remember, from when I was a senior, that these snot-nosed freshmen showed no respect for their elders. Those little bastards would cut in the lunch line, and I had to regulate like Warren G. I remember how small I was as a freshman and how I never even thought to cut in the lines filled with people who were like gorillas to my chimp. But no, these kids were little piles of belligerent adolescence. Walking past today’s freshmen, I found that not only haven’t they gotten better, they’ve actually gotten worse. They swear like sailors and they dress worse than I do. Their thong straps are higher, their pants are lower, their emo pins are more numerous, and their posture resembles an “S.”

I am not a crotchety, old man yet, but honestly, folks, kids today are more messed up than we were, and we practically invented school shootings and pre-marital anal sex. If we allow today’s children to grow to maturity, there’s no telling what they could do. There’s no telling what these kids could destroy. I imagine a Terminator-style apocalypse world where today’s adolescents roam freely and without restrictions while us older, drastically better-mannered folk are laughed at in cages. If you think the current administration can disintegrate a half-century of alliances and treaties, imagine when one of these brats gets elected to public office. The first thing he’ll do is piss off every country in the world by firing friggin’ nukes at them. It’s scary to think about, I know.

So what do we do? How can we correct our procreative mistakes? Simple; get rid of today’s kids. How? I don’t know. Cages, perhaps? Oooh, I know! How ’bout we imprison — nay, intern — all of today’s adolescents and start over. I mean, we interned the Japanese last century, and look how great that was. We won the war, people. Is anyone listening to me? And if we don’t meet our oppressed-peoples-quota-per-century, we’ll be kicked out of the clubhouse. Someone should talk to John Ashcroft about this; I bet he is down like a clown. He’s probably got a cleverly named act already written and waiting to pounce upon an unaware Congress. It’s got to be titled something that sounds so good our representatives can’t politically afford not to pass it. Something like The USA CHILDREN’S SAFETY ACT.

“Excuse me, Senator, Greta Van Douche from FOX News. Is it correct that you voted against the USA CHILDRENS SAFETY ACT? Don’t you care about children’s safety? Or are you a baby-hating, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, anti-American Nazi?”

I can see it now; a glorious existence with replacement kids who are brought up on a steady diet of Bill Cosby, “Care Bears” and abstinence. A land where bad means bad, good means great, and “phat” is still gibberish. Plus, we could use the discarded youth’s collective energy to power California Matrix-pod-person-Style: BOOM! No more energy crisis.

Obviously, the movement will have its detractors. But we progressives will surely know that their hatred is simply confirmation of our true path, that they are just wacko, radical-rightconservatives who feed off stagnation. We see tomorrow, and we don’t like it. We will make tomorrow safe for our children — well, safe for us.

E-mail Arun Butcher at [email protected].