America's Brain-Dead Teenaged Workforce in Trouble

Collapsing video rental and retail music industries having an adverse effect on the chronically stoned

Hemptastic, OR -- Most residents of this small town barely batted an eyelid when the Blockbuster Video in the Clover Hills outdoor shopping mall closed down last March. There was minimal fuss raised over the closing of Dangerous Dave's Discs and Tower Records, both in July. This internet-savvy town understands that purchase point retail operations are a thing of the past, when today you can get your favorite albums and videos online from "virtual" stores like amazon.com and imitators. However, they are now seeing undesirable results from the closure of these businesses and other layoffs in the local food service and shoe sales industries: more and more teenaged ne'er-do-wells hanging around the downtown area, most likely up to "no good."

"The closure of several area Blockbuster stores was a purely fiscal decision," began a prepared statement issued to the media by Viacom Entertainment, the gigantic corporation that owns the Blockbuster brand, "We knew it would have some impact on the economy, but we didn't dream it would have this kind of impact." The statement went on to say that it hoped Taco Bell/KFC and Staples would step in and employ some of these layabouts "during our time of crisis" while Blockbuster completely retools its operations to accomodate a new world of online video rental. "When we are done working out the kinks, I can't promise that we will be able to re-employ these lackadaisical teenaged slackers, but we will be able to provide them with the necessarily mind-numbing entertainment that will keep them docile."

A small segment of the academic community, however, has been warning against a glut of bored, ambling teens for some time now. "I foretold this exact thing back in 1974 when I wrote a paper condemning globalization and corporate chain stores," smugly mused Dr. Fertillingsworth from his office in the Economics Department of Princeton University, "At that time, the worry was that chain music retailers would put independently-run operations out of business, the latter being the number-one employer of moronic teens back then. And they scoffed at me then. Scoffed! Well, nobody's scoffing now. Uh, except the teenagers."

For the most part, the teens filling up downtown areas all over America seem harmless enough, they just seem exceedingly stoned and/or stupid. "I am a senior citizen, and my time is valuable," said Edith Rumrunner, aged 78, "and the other day I stood behind some baggy-pantsed vagabond on line for the bus for fifteen minutes while he tried to pick the necessary exact change from his pocket for the fare. And after all that time, turns out he didn't even need to take that bus! I tried to be angry with him, but really, I just pitied the poor creature. I know I shouldn't have, but I gave him a coupon for a free Starbucks latte."