TEEN BEAT!

[Note: This is an essay that was recently published in Expatica Spain.]

I’ve been watching Spanish teenagers a lot since I moved here in 1999. And it’s not just because they refuse to talk with me. They are, in fact, fascinating creatures to observe—and, contrary to some of their US counterparts, are unlikely to be concealing weapons.

Whether it’s due to curiosity or age, I’ve amassed a number of conclusions about their behavior that I’d like to share. So let’s begin this discussion on a scientific note. Evolution!

Within the next one hundred years, evolutionary forces will render the average Spanish teenager’s legs non-existent. This will happen because those legs are, in fact, redundant appendages—having been replaced long ago with the two-wheels of a Vespa® motorbike.

Spanish teens ride motorbikes everywhere. They ride them to the supermarket. They ride them to the park. They ride them to the toilet at 3am. But do they ride them responsibly? The answer is...“kind of.”

Spain has a mandatory helmet law, which teens strictly observe in spirit—if not in letter. The problem, you see, is not whether they wear their helmets. It’s where.

Half of all teenage motorbike drivers wear an unstrapped helmet balanced gingerly atop the crown of the head. This has the dual advantage of allowing the sun’s nourishing rays to penetrate the driver’s scalp, while freeing his face to smoke a cigarette at eighty kilometers per hour.

The other half wear their helmets on the elbow.

Arguably, however, Spanish teens don’t *need* to wear helmets because they’ve devised other, ingenious ways of making the motorbike experience a safer one. Foremost amongst these is to remove the muffler from the motorbike’s exhaust pipe and replace it with an empty beer can. This modification effectively notifies other motorists on the road—and in fact, across the entire province—that a teenager is in the vicinity and all lane changes should therefore be made with extra care.

They then take safety-consciousness one step further by driving these modified screamers between the hours of midnight and 3am—a time during which they’re likely to have the roads all to themselves, because the rest of the populace has long-since gone to bed and is trying to sleep.

But enough about science. Let’s move on to fashion.

A few years ago, my then-thirteen year old cousin from Nashville, Tennessee visited me in Barcelona. It was his first trip abroad. After twenty-four hours in town, he looked up to me and said, “Gosh!” [Apparently, they still say “Gosh!” in Nashville.] “The kids in Spain sure wear tight jeans.”

“What do they wear in Nashville?” I asked.

“The same thing, but six sizes bigger.”

And he was right, as I learned upon returning home the following Christmas. US teenagers wear ass-crack-to-floor length blue jeans so baggy and tattered that even Charlie Chaplin would be reluctant to don them; whereas their Spanish counterparts prefer jeans that appear to have been fashioned from Lycra and pulled from the wardrobe of a Barbie Dream House®.

I’m not sure why teens on each side of the Atlantic choose to dress so differently. Aren’t teenagers supposed to be the same the world over? I do, however, see logic in each side’s position. On the one hand, it makes perfect sense for teenage girls to flaunt their newly-budding bodies by wearing form-fitting jeans. On the other hand, it makes perfect sense for teenage boys to conceal their delight at such flaunting by wearing enormous, loose-fitting jeans.

And speaking of newly-budding bodies, let’s move on to our next topic...PDA.

Spanish teens are great aficionados of PDA. By “PDA,” I don’t mean Personal Digital Assistants. No teen would be interested in one of those, unless its screen displayed images of muscular bald men hacking each other to pieces with samurai swords. Rather, the PDA that I’m talking about is Public Display of Affection.

And when it comes to THAT type of PDA, Spanish teens are performance artists without out equal. Indeed, they’ll seize any opportunity to launch into a well-rehearsed pantomime of two carp pursuing the same piece of bread...and they’ll do it anywhere. They’ll do it in a commuter train. They’ll do it on a park bench. Or—as happens all too frequently—they’ll do it in a restaurant...at the table in front of me...while I’m trying to eat dinner.


Which brings us to our final topic for today—the botellón.

When the weekend rolls around, Spanish teens take to the supermarket. And what do they buy? They buy two-liter jugs of Coca-Cola, Tetrabrik boxes of low-grade red wine, bottles of the cheapest simulated Scotch whiskey on the shelf...and potato chips. Lots of potato chips. Then they congregate at a pre-arranged location for a “botellón.”

Botellones are informal, open-air parties at which several to hundreds of teenagers compete to see who can achieve the most skull-crushing hangover for the least amount of money. Botellones used to be a widespread occurrence throughout Spain—usually taking place in public parks of major cities. But alas, Spanish authorities began clamping down on these parties because—amongst other reasons—the kids failed to remember what their parents had taught them: Always pick-up after yourself.

Botellones still happen, of course. But they’ve moved on to more discrete venues. Here in Sanchoville, the weekly botellón takes place in the cornfields up the street from my house.

I was tempted to join these Children of the Corn during last Friday’s festivities. You know...for journalistic reasons. In the end, however, I decided against it—as being caught drinking Calimochos (i.e., red wine and Coca-cola cocktails) with peers who were wearing diapers when I was wearing university robes might not bode well for me when it comes time to renew my residency visa.

And anyway...they probably would’ve refused to talk with me.