The adult world gets to be a tiresome place sometimes. Yes, there's definitely the upsides (a driver's license is but one) but for the most part the responsibilities and cynicism and existential grinding can make life feel like a burden.
There's a certain brightness and sweetness to youth, a way of understanding things before reality intrudes beyond where it should. There hasn't been the rejection from a would-be girlfriend or the horrendous calc test or the miserable performance review. There's the fun of doing things just to do things. There's the ability to live and not even have to be convinced that the next day is going to be good. We should all try to be a bit more like that.
There's a lot to be said about the clarity of thought in a young and open mind, as well, like what wheatieboy knows about because of a friend's lawnmower and another story of too much gasoline on hand:
I'll put tl/dr right up front.
Last year my buddy, Matt, bought a new lawnmower. The dealer tells him "Make sure you put new gas in it." Matt goes home take the new mower to the shed and finds, in the shed, a 5 gallon gas can with about 2 gallons of fuel in it. Problem: The gas has been sitting in the shed all winter.
So, heeding the dealer's advice to use new gas, Matt puts the full gas can in the back of his truck and heads out to try and figure out what to do with the old gas.
First, he calls me. "Does anyone in town take old gas?". "You mean like old oil?" I ask him. Nobody does. So, he goes over to the school he teaches at to do some marking and to think about what to do with all the old gas. While at the school he meets up with a fellow teacher, Kelly. He asks Kelly "Hey, whatd'ya think I should do with two gallons of old gas that I need to get rid of?" Kelly says, "Dump it in the gravel parking lot behind the school and throw a match at it."
They go out to the truck, look at the empty gravel parking lot and begin to contemplate Kelly's suggestion. Wisely they decide against this course of action.
As they're standing at the back of the truck, with the gas can on the ground between them, on of their students (Grade 8) walks by. "Whatcha doin' Mr S.?" says the kid. Matt tells him the whole story of buying the new lawn mower, needing to use new gas, finding two gallons of old gas and not knowing what to do with it.
The kid says "Is that the gas there in the can?"
"Yep"
"Why don't you just put in your truck?"
"I did, I brought it down here in the truck."
The kid looks him dead in the eye and says "in the tank".
Photo Credit: Jeremy Salmon