EXTRACURRICULARS: Suburban-Teen Beggars are Worse than Puberty

When I was 13, I was pretty worried about what folks thought about me. Didn't want to say the wrong thing, obsessed over whether or not I may have a slight lisp, wondering if my kickin' overalls were kickin' enough to compete with the serious overall-diversity then populating the halls of SouthView Middle School...

...basically, 13-17 was a shame-filled time.

Which seeming lack adds even another layer to the already extreme offensiveness of one of the most annoying fixtures of Harvard Square, and one must assume random locales in other largeish urban locales: the teenage, obviously suburban, beggar.

Kids, when you're wearing unscuffed shoes with no sole-wear and a well-kept coat, eating takeout Chinese, and able to afford the Manic Panic dye that keeps your hair BRIGHT blue, not 2-weeks-old-faded blue, I KNOW you're not a street kid. The cigarettes and nasty expressions don't fool me. Neither does the cardboard sign (here's a little tip: cardboard is pretty easy to find). Especially not fooled by the fact that the sign you're carrying either says something "witty," i.e. "bet you $1 you'll look!" or something retarded about 4/20.

Now I suppose the faux-teenage-beggar crowd could also be responding to the fact that they care TOO much about what others think of them; this is why whole legions of goth-groups shop at Hot Topic in mini, not-cool-crowd-packs, after all -- I mean, you weren't all BORN liking sh*tty metal and corpse paint.

But that doesn't make it any less goddammed annoying for me to have to look at your smirking, overly-made-up faces every day on my way to jobs, while I ponder my LEGITIMATE worries, and generally manage NOT to be simultaneously offensive to both the working AND the homeless populations. At least the folks conforming to the other high-school-standards (because let's be real, here - your belief that you're so funny and wild and different and that no one GETS you is just another version of being INCREDIBLY predictable) don't ask for my money.

-Posted by Jilly