Have you heard about the latest teenage stunt? Better yet have you seen it? Bored youngsters have discovered a way to pass the time that makes swallowing goldfish or stuffing Volkswagens appear tame.
It’s called fence-plowing or fence popping and it goes like this. A dumb teenager runs into a fence full speed ahead and smashes it to pieces. That’s it. Of course it’s not enough to just do the damage. All the destruction is recorded on video and then posted on YouTube or on MySpace.
Don’t believe it? Check out You Tube and just search for Fence plowing. It’s all there in glorious hand held video for the world to see.
Several things occur to me when I think about this latest teen craze. Have kids gotten that dumb?
The wildest thing I ever heard someone in my generation take part in was mailbox smashing. The idea was you rode along country roads and leaned out of the car with a baseball bat and pretended you were Mickey Mantle and the mailbox was a baseball.
Of course the whole idea other than wanton destruction was to never ever get caught. These dopey kids are recording the crime and then posting it on websites that the whole world can see. In one case a fence plower thoughtfully left his cell phone complete with the video of the fence plowing near the destroyed fence. Instant apprehension.
While I haven’t heard of any fence plowing incidents here in Northeast Pa I am sure it’s only a matter of time before we catch up with the latest trend.
And when we do I am ready for it. I have quite a lot of fence on my property. It’s perfect for fence plowing. Nice cedar fence. Somewhat weathered. Just waiting for some teenager to do his best. Oh did I mention that my fence has years of poison ivy growing on it?
Bring on the teens!
-30-
Go back to today’s Blog post for 2/14/11