Middle Schoolers

In a world before Memorial Day, amusement parks are but dreams of families and students that are stuck in jobs or school. However, for a few lucky students, their schools feel that taking their pupils to an amusement park for a day is a good idea. These students are generally in middle school- which means they are at an age where they feel that the unchaperoned time away from parents and adults makes them special, awesome, and pretty much invincible. This can be seen in the way they treat employees and each other.
As an employee, I notice these things. Rarely is 'please' or 'thank you' heard and if you're a slightly attractive female, groups of young boys love to ogle. Luckily they aren't brave enough to talk you... unless they are. Then you get to experience bad pick-up lines and humorous attempts to impress college-aged girls. These attempts are worst if you work near the arcade or other boardwalk game. This enables them to try and be successful at things such as DDR and that one game where you hit the button with a hammer and try to make the lights go to the top. Needless to say, it never works. You have to smile and move on.
Not all boys are like this though. There are few nerdy ones, but they seem shy and more interested in spending time with friends. They often remember 'please's and 'thank you's and aren't outwardly interesting in trying to impress you. However, these are few, and fist pumps/party boying happens a lot more often.
I heard an old man say today "Any more of those crazy oversexed children today?" I was trying to think of what he meant, and then it hit me. Most of the girls I watched pass by were in shorts so short they barely counted as actual clothing. The tanktops weren't a lot better. Now I'm not saying that this is all below me. At the moment, I'm typing this in an outfit similar to what I saw there. I guess it's just a reflection of our society changing, but I recall my mother telling me several times that I needed to change before I left the house because she wasn't a fan of styles that made girls look like "hussies."
It's a bit weird watching middle schoolers because I easily remember when I was that age. I was dark, morbid, depressing, and had a complete hatred for anything main stream- however, I recall wanting all the popular clothes and secretly listening to pop music as if it were a horrible sinful thing to do. (It probably is.) These students seem entirely different. It's only been 5 years since I was there, but the world of middle school has changed.
There are things that remain the same though. Boys and girls still live in different groups, and rarely interact unless there is a relationship. Occasionally there will be mixed groups without a relationship, but I often question the males in these groups. They seem very excited and wear flamboyant colors. I know it's wrong of me, but past experience has taught me that those cases are 83% correct.
Economically they make horrible decisions. I was working near the arcade I think that some of them poured at least thirty dollars into gaming. These games didn't even give tickets for prizes. They were simple games- with no reward, and the students poured money into them. This is good for business, but I don't understand their logic. Hopefully they get over that someday.

So after all of this, I don't know what I've learned? Was the old man right in calling them "crazy" and "oversexed"? No, but at the same time, they aren't the exact opposite either. They're at a growing stage- physically and mentally. Let's just hope that fist pumps and general disregard for other human beings gets knocked out of the DNA for their next phase- high school.