Eleven practical uses for teenagers (Happy Friday!)

There is an awkward stage of human growth that occurs during the transition from wide-eyed adorableness and tiny voices to full-on adulthood. It’s called the teen years, and it’s one of the darker stages in the human development where the individual, over several years, is rendered utterly useless to humanity.

It’s a stage many of us look back on with cringing shame, and wonder how we made it through alive. Although not fully documented in all its bleakness (because most of humanity prefers to forget they ever went through it), the teen stage is a tumultuous, obnoxious and utterly intolerable stage, where the individual becomes a useless drain on society and their family for a period of several years.

The typical behaviours and symptoms of this stage include: wild hormonal tantrums, knowing it all, snide retorts, disrespectful entitlement, utter obliviousness to others, a complete lack of consideration, self-absorption beyond what was thought to be possible in human beings, voracious eating, costly care, bad hygiene, complete shutdown of gray-matter functions, completely insane decision-making, refusal of responsibility of any kind, greediness, materialism, laziness, stupidity (which can be also attributed to Natural Selection), self-righteousness, affinity for dramatics, a complete lapse in taste in clothes, music, and everything else and much more. Some individuals manage to scrape their way through the teen years still clinging to their dignity, but on the most part, most teenaged individuals are just completely useless wastes of space until they grow out of it.

But, since this is a common stage of human development, we are all unfortunately saddled with the burden of having to deal with these individuals as they go through this miserable stage of temporary devolution while they revert for a short period to the more ape-like tendencies of our simian ancestors; I have created this list of uses for teenagers and pre-teens that could make the obligation of enduring their presence in our society a smidge more tolerable.





1. Flood Control

  Stacking teenagers and pre-teens up like sandbags is a fast and effective way to prevent floodwaters from deluging your community.




2. Peacekeeping

 Air-drop a few legions of teenagers into any country with political strife and war. The whining, temper tantrums, ‘I wants’, unmotivated rage, laziness, entitled outbursts and smug retorts will be enough to send any armed faction or insurgents to drop their weapons and to flee in horror back to their villages.




3. Speed Bumps

 Speeders are a problem in many of our communities. There are plenty of spare teens around to solve this problem.



4. Scarecrows

 This is a most appropriate use for a teenager. Already dressed in horrible, saggy fashions, or overflowing muffin-tops, the teen won’t even know they’re serving a useful purpose. Give them an iPhone or a PSP, and they’ll remain tied to the post with little resistance.


5. Ballast




6. Punching Bags




7. Scientific Experimentation



8. Demolition

 A teenager’s natural ability for destruction is ideal when something needs to be rendered into a ruin, such as office buildings or old factories. Just set a few of them loose on the property for about three hours and they will invariably demolish the place.



9. Man-made coral reefs

 This would be killing several birds with one stone, both lightening the world's teen-burden, but also helping rejuvenate our struggling ocean ecosystems.



10. Instant Bridges for Distasters and Emergencies



11. Fill

  
As you can see, I've put some careful thought into practical uses for what is normally a completely useless yet far too abundant resource.  It surely would serve us better than simply allowing them to roam freely at malls, spend all day playing WOW or take up couch-space in front of the gaming console.