Teen Titans

What's the matter with kids these days? There was this nineteen-year-old at the University of Connecticut who ended up getting arrested after a ten minute rant about mac and cheese in the cafeteria. Did I mention this rant was a drunken rant? It ended up with campus police being called, arresting Luke Gatti for his obscenity-laden insistence that he be served his late night snack of choice: bacon-jalapeno macaroni and cheese. To young mister Gatti's credit, it's pretty amazing stuff. Maybe not good enough to get arrested for, but pretty delicious.
That was three weeks ago. About a week later, after the Youtubes gave everyone on the planet a chance to see just how awful a UConn Husky could behave, Luke decided to use the same venue to apologize for his creepy behavior. It should be noted that his apology clocks in at just about one third of his babbling assertion that he was owed pasta and fromage. All good, right?
Unless you happen to be a fourteen-year-old in Irving, Texas. This kid didn't want mac and cheese. He wanted to bring his homemade electronic clock to show his teachers. Ahmed Mohamed was arrested at his high school for bringing a "hoax bomb" to school. As a teacher, I suppose I can understand why people might be nervous. Things are exploding in schools across America on what seems like a regular basis. Better to be safe than sorry. Especially if the kid in question is named Ahmed? Or maybe this was a little too much fear and not enough thought.
Ahmed was invited to the White House. Luke was sent a lot of macaroni and cheese.
And the rest of our nations' teenagers? Well, they land somewhere in between. Some are drunkenly trying to assemble clocks from bits of broken Xboxes. Some are working feverishly in labs trying to come up with tastier versions of cafeteria favorites. Most of them don't end up in police custody, but thanks to social media, we now periodically send a star or two into the Internet heavens as examples of what our country has to offer: homemade electronic macaroni and cheese served in a timely manner. America's Youth: We salute you!