"The Circles of Hell" in High School. I had one who fit this category:
Circle 5- The River Styx; the Wrathful and the Sullen: The ones who SWORE that they would never want to go to college or trade school have lost a bit of that sneer as they are slowly coming to the realization that after antagonizing Mom and Dad for the last six years, what with the brushes with the law and the suspensions and the phone calls from school and the poor grades, their parents are COUNTING the days until they can tell their offspring that their bedroom has become an exercise room, and seven bucks an hour at TWO part time jobs at fast food joints minus something called FICA and social security will get them a run-down one bedroom apartment with three roommates, rides to work on a bus, peanut butter sandwiches, no vacations EVER-- much less three months in a row off, no health care, and tennis shoes from K-Mart, not Foot Locker. No bling, no phat threads, and no pimpin' any rides. Suddenly four years of sitting in a classroom listening to someone drone on and on about 18th century British literature or the principles of accounting doesn't sound nearly as stupefying as fifty years of soul-destroying repetitive labor where you come home at the end of the day with the smell of fried food permeating even your HAIR, which you now have to get cut at Great Clips four times a year. They've asked their uncle about that job at the Ford plant, but it's shutting its doors in 2007 and outsourcing to Mexico under NAFTA, and soon their uncle may be delivering pizzas and competing with them for jobs-- and he, at least, has a history of showing up to work on time and following directions, which gives him a big leg up on them.
Gosh, is it too late to take the ACT?
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