Hey Kid, Take Out the Earphones. We Said, Hey Kid . . .

JeanneSager — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:28:00 GMT

You've seen them. The kids walking around, totally oblivious to the car that just screeched to a halt thisclose to taking them out, definitely not hearing the driver screaming at them. Some how, when I see a teenager with their iPod buds stuffed in their ears, I want to run up, yank on one wire and flick them on the now-hearing ear. Case in point:

The Green line of Boston's trolley system was shut down for more than four hours yesterday after a Boston College student was struck by a train (don't worry, he was conscious and talking in the ambulance despite some pretty nasty head injuries). Witnesses said the driver tried honking the horn, but the student never heard a thing because he had earphones on. How loud did he have those tunes cranked? I used to live beside a set of train tracks. A horn sounding to warn a deer off the tracks could send me bolting out of a dead sleep. They're not lining 'em up for stealth missions anytime soon.

Another big shocker here: trains run on tracks. Even my three-year-old has enough Thomas the Tank Engine episodes under her belt to tell you that. When you step onto the tracks, you might, well, want to check to see if there's a train coming through? Yup, I just confirmed it - I asked my three-year-old what you do before you step on a train track, and she looked at me funny. "You look both ways, Mom." I retreated before she got to a second chorus of "they're two, they're four, they're six, they're eight . . ."

So how do our kids go from three-year-old geniuses to boneheaded college students? It's got to be their taste in music, right?

Image: SeniorJunior

Strollerderby : headphones

Hey Kid, Take Out the Earphones. We Said, Hey Kid . . .

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