Transporting teenagers is like herding cats
Individually, teenagers can be delightful. In a group, however,
they magnify each other’s faults to a ridiculous degree.
I witnessed this in action over the weekend. Boy, did I
ever.
My 16-year-old son, Hunter, is in an anime club at his high
school. This is a rather nerdish thing to be involved with, but I
don’t have any complaints about that. Anime is anything related to
Japanese animation, and the club expands on that, embracing
everything from films to video games to Asian culture.
Transporting teenagers is like herding cats
Individually, teenagers can be delightful. In a group, however, they magnify each other’s faults to a ridiculous degree.
I witnessed this in action over the weekend. Boy, did I ever.
My 16-year-old son, Hunter, is in an anime club at his high school. This is a rather nerdish thing to be involved with, but I don’t have any complaints about that. Anime is anything related to Japanese animation, and the club expands on that, embracing everything from films to video games to Asian culture.
Occasionally the club organizes field trips, and over this past weekend, it was the most important trip of the entire year: attending FanimeCon in San Jose. This is a convention where people come together to dress up as various videogame or cartoon characters, play videogames, watch animated movies, meet some of the artists who work on such things, and in general, revel in anime.
This was a very big deal indeed for Hunter’s club. They sell candy bars and sodas all year long to fund the FanimeCon trip. There was obvious excitement on the part of the club members that they would get to travel to the big city of San Jose and spend the weekend there at this big convention.
So: You have a group that is motivated to go. Very motivated. But being teenagers, they don’t have a clue about how to organize themselves.
There’s an expression for it. “Like herding cats.” That’s about the size of it.
Hunter insisted that we get to Starbucks at 8 a.m. on Saturday so we could meet the group. He was so insistent that we actually got there 10 minutes early. One other family was there. Of course, it took another 45 minutes for the rest of the kids to dribble in.
Although everyone said they wanted to get on the road early, the group sort of milled around for a while, ordering frappaccinos and such.
Then a crisis came up regarding entry into the convention.
Since most of the kids had pre-registered online, everyone needed a picture I.D. to pick up their entry passes. Then one girl decided there was some e-mail printout that would be needed in addition to the I.D.
Everyone dutifully trooped over to the girl’s grandmother’s house to print out the e-mails. There was more milling about and eating of snacks. It was slow going. Another parent and I made small talk and watched the clock.
Then someone volunteered the information that the printout wasn’t necessary. A friend at the convention had gotten in with just an I.D.
By this time, it was 9:30 a.m. and I was getting a little impatient.
I decided to provide some leadership since no one else seemed to be providing
“Guys,” I said, “it’s time to go.”
So there’s two cars full of people, mine being one, and we’re on the road to San Jose. The lead car abruptly pulls over just before the 85 turnoff.
I pulled over too, and got out of the car to talk to the other driver. Apparently one of the girls in the car had forgotten her wallet – with her I.D., of course – and they had to turn around to get it.
I pressed on with my group despite the setback.
We finally arrived at the San Jose Convention Center and dumped off the group. It felt like a major accomplishment.
Luckily, everything worked out all right. The girl got her wallet. Everyone found each other eventually. They had a wonderful time. My son dressed up as a character from the videogame Fallout, and came in second in the “Most Original” category of a costume contest.
However, I can’t help feeling that if I hadn’t intervened, they’d still be back at the grandmother’s house trying to print out e-mails. Who knows when they would have gotten there.
I feel that I qualify for that expert cat herder badge, if it exists.
