Mischief managed

I stumbled upon an interesting thought yesterday in a conversation with my coworker. She told me she recently had to discipline her pre-teen daughter for making a prank call to a fellow classmate. The call itself wasn't what bothered her so much, but the angry phone call from the classmate's father who identified my colleague's household on his phone's caller ID meant this particular brand of teenage debauchery is no longer worth the risk... and obviously caused quite a hassle. 

Hmm... hadn't thought much about how technology ruins all the fun. No crank calls, no anonymous e-mails (any message can be traced if you really want it to be and you know someone who spends way too much time on a computer), no need to send "notes" when you can just text message. And no privacy, either. I betcha there's more than one Vanessa Hudgens out there who's sorry she ever took pictures of her naughty bits and then sent them—over the phone of all things—to her sugary sweet Zac Efron boyfriend.

And in this sue-happy age, not even toilet papering is safe. Speaking from experience, I can recall at least three different occasions when my house was toilet-papered growing up. My dad was the superintendent of my school district, and before that my mom was on the school board, but they never even considered punishing the offenders (at least not to my knowledge). Instead, they took it all in relatively good stride and recruited the four of us kids to clean up the mess (tricky when our trees easily reach higher than 50 feet).

I don't recall any strict rules about prank calling, either. Good thing, because I do believe that was one of my sister's favorite pastimes with her girlfriends circa 1989. Can't blame her for that, there wasn't much fun to be had in the country after you'd watched "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" for the 20th time and poured over Teen Beat magazines of the New Kids (who are making a comeback!). I myself wasn't much of a crank caller, but I did do the call/hang up routine regularly each time I embarked upon a new 7th-grade crush. People were just starting to use *69 back then, and it was, at best, unreliable in revealing shy or mischievous callers.

But, I bet my parents would have hyperventilated at the thought of my siblings and I unleashed in cyberspace as teenagers. It's hard to maintain control of your kids when there's a permanent record of every wrong phrase they utter, every poor decision they make, and every inappropriate picture they post (because they all do inevitably). I don't envy parents of kids who are surfing the 'Net, IMing and trading jabs on Facebook. It's impossible to keep up with the pace of communication these days.

Anyway, it all leaves me to wonder how kids are getting in trouble these days, at least on more harmless levels. Do they still toilet paper or do they worry a policeman will show up on their door? What's the new crank call (or is it still fun to order pizzas for people who don't realize it)? Is the ultimate way to harass each other through social networking (online, that is)? To even wonder makes me feel so old. 

I feel for my siblings. Their kids will get to this scary point in less than five years. I feel comforted that at least Noah's mischief is limited to emptying laundry baskets or getting his fingers too close to electrical outlets. That, I can deal with... and maybe even a few failed attempts at crank calls too.