The Only Truly Sustainable Power

This was my last printed article. I liked it. Everything seemed to go in a downward spiral from here.

There is growing concern as to the energy crisis that the world is facing today, and people are turning to alterative power solutions such as solar power, geothermal heating, and cars fueled by McDonald’s grease (seriously, some guy at UBC built one) to lessen the extent on which we rely on oil, which we all know isn’t going to last much longer. Recently, Vancouver has proposed to build hydrogen fuel stations (presumably for hydrogen-fueled cars) along the revamped Vancouver-Whistler highway in time for the 2010 Olympics. As the search continues for “how-to-unfuck-ourselves-for-less” one source of limitless chemical energy has continued to remain untapped: teenage angst.

Think of every teenager you know, and recall being a teenager yourself. The only two emotions that teenagers seem to feel are the desire for sex, followed by depression because they cannot have sex for whatever reason (apathy, while prominent, is not really an emotion, and most likely results from not getting any). Think of all the teens out there, sitting in their high school classes, brimming over with hormones they don’t realize they have (mostly because they don’t pay attention in classes, I know I didn’t), looking for an invitation to jump the person sitting next to them at some party in the near future. This is a resource that we could be exploiting.

We would have to start with the Goths. These kids are the least complex and the most depressed. The basic Goth mind state is as follows: Can’t get any because I’m (insert insecurity here), wear dark clothes, mope around, spend lots of money on eye shadow and nail polish. There you have it, after a careful analysis of the Goth mentality, we can easily tap into their angst and turn it into fuel. The first thing to do is to get them to volunteer their angst. Now, if you’ve ever had a discussion with a teenager, whilst not being a teenager yourself, you will find that they have no idea how full of angst they are, and any broach of the subject will result in them locking themselves in whatever area of the house they hibernate in (basement, attic, family tomb), lighting a bunch of smelly candles, and blasting Linkin Park really loudly either for the next six hours or until they leave the house in the ever-unsuccessful pursuit of sex, whichever is first. From there, analyzing other cliques is just as easy: jocks want sex and sports, geeks want sex and video games, and some people will accept sex and candy.

So I propose an easy way to rally teenagers to our harvesting facilities, henceforth known as Angst-o-mats©. Telling them that there is a teen group meeting there will only attract religious kids and keeners (these kids are usually either well-adjusted or preachy nutbags – think of all the I’ve-been-volunteering-for-18-days-without-food-because-it-will-help-me-get-into-med-school-and-you’d-better-start-doing-the-same-or-you’ll-never-make-the-cut kids out there) and nobody wants to deal with that. No, we need a way to attract them so that they won’t know why they’re really there: tell them there are free band T-shirts; you know those really ugly concert T-shirts that cost $60 at the show, and then you never wear them again because you realize how ugly they are (and that everyone who sees you will know you spent $60 on that ugly shirt). The teens will file in to the Angst-o-matic, sit in the “waiting room” chairs (actually a high-tech, angst-sucking machine that absorbs the hormones by osmosis), and leave with nothing. They won’t care that we didn’t give them T-shirts because when they leave they’ll be less depressed and realize “I don’t really like Marilyn Manson anyways”. Then, when the hormones build up again, the teens will think “I never got my T-shirt, I’m going back to have an angst-induced tantrum (or whatever they call it in their own minds)!” Then it’s, “Oh, sorry, we forgot your T-shirt! Have a seat in this chair and we’ll bring it right out to you”. The cycle is complete, free renewable energy and all it costs us is innovation!

As the teens grow older and move out of their parent’s garages, the allure of free T-shirts and pent up sexual depression will have fizzled and they will stop remembering about the free stuff we promised them. By time that happens though, there will be a new batch of angry, sexless, hormone-sacs just beginning their depressed high school dramas, and in the mood for a free Korn T-shirt.

The key now is to stop them from having sex, not that I’m against teenaged sex for any religious reasons, but because they have a power source that can be harnessed and exploited. I’m sure that blatantly exploiting teen sex will be no less opposed than the subverted exploitation of it that goes on already, besides parents who complain about their kids belly shirts and tight jeans would probably rather them become productive members of society (willing or not) than getting pregnant at some random house party. It’s not like many of them are having sex anyways; yes, there are a lot of teenage pregnancies, but compare the number of teenage mothers (and fathers) to the total number of teenagers in Canada or the US. The majority of them come home depressed and empty-handed on Saturday night and, hormones ablaze, proceed to take it out on their families. So basically, by using Angst Power© I’m saving people both money and grief. Sponsors can send donations to my crack team of scientists (namely myself, my fiancée, and our pet rat, Felix) and can be contacted at mailto:snaphegyi@hotmail.com?subject=Sustainable%20Power