Screen teens (write of passage number forty-two)

On a beautiful afternoon of what was probably the last warm Saturday of the year, I suggested lunch at a restaurant on the Rideau Canal, one which I've been meaning to try for years. This involved a hefty bus ride, lengthened by a re-routed crawl around the War Memorial, as Hades scrambles to get ready for Canada's sesquicentennial next year.

About half a dozen teenaged girls boarded the bus at the Rideau Centre, and artfully arranged themselves in the seats just ahead of us. They looked as if they'd been cast by an agency: willowy, various shades of blond - except for an Afro-Canadian, an Asian Canadian, and a prettily plump dark-haired girl who was reading the protest signs at Parliament Hill:

"'Stop execlutions in Iran... What's that?"

One of the willowy blonds looked down on her witheringly from her perch in the sideway seats.
"Executions.  There's no 'l' in 'execution'."

The subject was quickly dropped for gossip, continuing the length of Bank Street into the Glebe.

"Don't invite Max -- we hate him, remember?"
"So invite him and then we can all ignore him."

"Cassidy? I hate her!"
"So do I!"
"So do I!"
"I really hate her --- wait --- I don't think I know her..."

My phone tapped.  It was a text notification from elder daughter, seated next to me:

I wouldn't go back to high school if someone paid me.