Consciousness Raising Exercise #36

Make a deal with a male teenager who is not a member of your immediate family. Promise to pay the kid $10 if he will act out the following scenario with you.

Give the teenager an apple, a can of warm soda, and a copy of the daily newspaper's sports section. Tell him you want him to go home and read the highlights of the day's sports news to you over the phone while following these printed instructions.

Before he calls you, he is to make sure that a radio or television can be clearly heard in the background.

Before dialing, he is to drink the can of warm soda as quickly as possible.

When you answer the phone, he is to say "Testing, testing," and spit three times into the mouthpiece.

Following this, he is to start eating the apple as he reads the sports page to you.

After reading the first paragraph, he is to tap the phone's mouthpiece five times with a pen.

After reading the second paragraph, he is to belch as loudly as possible into the mouthpiece.

After he is finished belching, he is to position the mouthpiece near his forehead and mumble a set of game scores as quickly as he can while finishing the apple.

When he has finished, he is to slam the phone down without any warning and come back to see you.

When he arrives, he is to grab the $10 bill you are holding in your hand and scream:

"How dare you criticize a teenager. You've got a lot of nerve, biting the hand that feeds you. If it weren't for us teenagers, you wouldn't have a job!"



• At this point you must profusely apologize to the teenager, tell him how sorry you are to have upset him, and promise never to upset him again.