I've got a couple of teenage nieces and sometimes I just could throttle them and their attitude. "There's nothin to doooooooo". What did you do when you were a teener? What was your favorite thing to do? I used to surf or walk the beach(miles of beaches here) and try to pick up girls. Or go to LA and cruise Bob's Big Boys like Whittier Blvd or Burbank. There were always tourist girls around so my trashy surf dogs and I would tell them about this great party at the beach that night and we'd build a big fire and steal beers and wines(Gallo Vin Rose') from Roy's Market and these girls would show up and it would be just us 5 or 6 guys waitin for them. So what did you do? The Old Surf Dog

-- Anonymous, September 12, 2000

Answers

I worked so that I could have enough money to buy more than one outfit to wear to school.

-- Anonymous, September 12, 2000

Ya I worked too. I had 2 jobs at one point. And went to highschool.

Mostly we drove around (well I didn't drive, I still don't have a driver's license) and listened to music. It's like a couch on wheels. And we sat in the park and smoked dope. Sometimes we watched movies. I think that sums up the leisure activities of my teen years. Oh and I lived on Lake Ontario so I used to go for walks along the water all the time too. I wish I lived near the Ocean though.

-- Anonymous, September 12, 2000

I did TOO MUCH when I was teenager. I mostly worked, and often supported myself & made my own rules (usually NOT based on common sense). I had a dog & often didn't have a roof over my head. I was enrolled in school, but didn't go much until my last year. By then it was too late to catch up & I didn't want to do more high school to graduate, so I got a GED a coupla years after high school. Smoked a lot of weed and experimented with some other stuff. Broke an awful lot of laws & hearts. I lived in Oakland, San Jose, Ben Lomond and Santa Cruz (all in CA) as a teen during the 80's. Saw a lot of very interesting things.

-- Anonymous, September 13, 2000

Oy, I was rather obnoxious. Can you believe it?! High school was less than challenging academically so I was pretty focused on my social/sex life, which entailed a lot of drinking and driving. Pretty cool, I know.

-- Anonymous, September 13, 2000

I worked a lot, too. And studied. Not getting scholarships, loans, and financial assistance for college would have meant no college and I was well-motivated to go. So I spent a lot of time filling out applications, writing essays and submitting art work (some of which I never saw again) to every Big Pocket my guidance councellor and I could find.

Actually, re: working, at one point, I was earning more per hour watching kids and doing freelance art and writing (over $10 an hour on average) than I did on my first post-college "with benefits" jobs. Combined. But making more per hour is only good if you work the same amount of hours, of course...

Tell your teeners that only the boring get bored, there's always something to do. (I'd advise not putting them to work doing housework, though, which is what my mom did to my brother when he griped about being 'bored'. Well, unless you want them never to communicate honestly with you again for fear of having to scrub toilets. You wouldn't hear them complain ever again, but you probably wouldn't ever get to hear what's on their minds again either.)

I wish I had had time to get bored when I was a teenager.

-- Anonymous, September 13, 2000

I worked too, got a job at Bonanza Steakhouse when I was 16...glamourous job! Other than that, I had 1 friend, we weren't cool, so I sat around the house and read alot of books, watched alot of TV (BW movies and musicals) and late at nite, when the parental units were in bed, watched the soft porn on cable.

-- Anonymous, September 13, 2000

If I remember correctly, I was rarely bored due to various jobs and taking care of my sister after school (latch key kid and all). I spent that money on David Bowie albums, midnight movies, dance clubs that opened at midnight, thrift store clothes, going to Clash concerts (and getting back stage passes WITHOUT giving the gross roadie any part of me), hanging out. Cable had just come to town and my best friend had it and we watched a million hours of MTV and other weird experimental late night stuff, rode around the local university and picked up older men, lost my virginity, had boyfriends. Then I had to get serious and get admitted into college.

-- Anonymous, September 14, 2000

Bored? As a teenager? Na-a-aw. We were too busy annoying the shit out of the adults. Two way cool things we used to do: Drive country roads a night in a truck, drinking beer, picking up roadkill with a shovel and then putting it in people's mailboxes we didn't like. And buying rubbers at the drugstore when the church lady was working the counter. ("What brand? Oh...it doesn't matter...just extra large ones, please.")

-- Anonymous, September 15, 2000