Your modern teenager is not about to listen to advice from an

Host:
The afternoon light slanted through the wide windows of a cluttered bookstore café, turning the dust motes into small, wandering galaxies. Outside, the city hummed with the restless pulse of youth — laughter spilling from sidewalks, the shriek of a skateboard wheel against concrete, the throb of music leaking from headphones that no one else could hear.

Inside, time moved differently. The air smelled of paper, espresso, and faint irony.

At a corner table, surrounded by stacks of books, Jack sat with his arms crossed, his expression caught between amusement and disapproval. Jeeny was opposite him, a steaming cup of chai between her hands, her eyes bright with mischief, as though she were about to defend the indefensible.

A group of loud teenagers in mismatched jackets huddled near the counter, taking selfies and laughing so hard that their echoes clashed with the café’s soft jazz.

Jeeny:
“You’re glaring,” she said, not looking up from her cup. “That’s your ‘they don’t make ’em like they used to’ face.”

Jack:
“I’m not glaring,” he said flatly. “I’m observing the downfall of civilization.”

Jeeny:
She smiled. “Dave Barry once said, ‘Your modern teenager is not about to listen to advice from an old person, defined as a person who remembers when there was no Velcro.’ I think he was right.”

Jack:
“Of course you do,” he said. “You like to romanticize rebellion.”

Host:
The light shifted, falling across Jack’s sharp features, cutting his face into lines of shadow and irony.

Jeeny:
“It’s not rebellion,” she said. “It’s evolution. Every generation needs to ignore the one before it — otherwise the world would never move forward.”

Jack:
“Forward?” he echoed. “You mean scrolling endlessly on screens and mistaking sarcasm for identity? Yeah, that’s progress.”

Jeeny:
“Spoken like a man who still thinks Velcro was cutting-edge technology.”

Host:
He laughed despite himself, the sound low, reluctant, warm.

Jack:
“You know what’s funny?” he said. “I remember when adults used to say the same thing about us. They thought we were doomed because we had cassette tapes and sarcasm. Turns out sarcasm survived better than we did.”

Jeeny:
“Exactly,” she said. “You’re proving my point. They rolled their eyes at your generation, you’re rolling your eyes at this one — and someday, they’ll roll their eyes at the next. It’s the great circle of irony.”

Jack:
“I don’t mind irony,” he said. “It’s the indifference that scares me. These kids — they don’t rebel, they perform it. It’s curated defiance. They protest through filters and hashtags, and then move on to the next trending catastrophe.”

Jeeny:
She leaned forward, her voice soft but deliberate. “Maybe that’s just their language, Jack. We wrote angry songs. They write posts. You can’t blame them for using the tools the world handed them.”

Host:
The music shifted — an old Nirvana track drifted in from the speakers, faint and crackling, like a ghost from another decade. Both of them went silent for a moment, the nostalgia heavy in the air.

Jack:
“You think I’m being too hard on them,” he said finally.

Jeeny:
“I think you’ve forgotten how it felt to be dismissed.”

Jack:
He smirked. “Touché.”

Jeeny:
“When you were seventeen,” she said, “did you listen to advice from anyone who remembered a world without anything you cared about?”

Jack:
“No,” he admitted. “I didn’t listen to anyone, period.”

Jeeny:
“Exactly. That’s the job of a teenager — to be deaf to wisdom until life makes it echo in their own voice.”

Host:
She smiled, her eyes catching the soft light from the window. There was something almost holy in that smile — not innocence, but acceptance.

Jack:
“You make it sound noble.”

Jeeny:
“It is,” she said. “The arrogance of youth is just courage in disguise. It’s the first time you believe you can remake the world — before the world teaches you to doubt it.”

Host:
The sound of laughter erupted again near the counter. The teens were arguing about whether vinyl records were “retro cool or just dusty.”

Jack rolled his eyes, but his lips twitched into something dangerously close to affection.

Jack:
“Okay,” he said. “Maybe they’re not hopeless. But they don’t seem to have the same weight we did. Everything they say vanishes in twenty-four hours. They build their lives in disappearing messages.”

Jeeny:
“Maybe that’s how they cope,” she said. “Ephemeral things hurt less when they break.”

Jack:
“That’s a sad way to live.”

Jeeny:
“It’s the same way you did,” she said softly. “Only your ghosts were written on paper instead of screens.”

Host:
Her words landed quietly. The rain outside began again — soft, steady, comforting. The windowpane trembled with it, the world blurring at the edges.

Jack:
“You really think they’re okay?” he asked.

Jeeny:
“I think they’re surviving,” she said. “The world they inherited is faster, louder, meaner — and yet they still laugh, still fall in love, still dream. Maybe not in ways we understand, but isn’t that what we said about our parents too?”

Jack:
He sighed. “Maybe I just miss the time when being young meant mystery, not exposure.”

Jeeny:
“Maybe you miss being the one misunderstood,” she teased.

Host:
He looked up at her, mock glare dissolving into a quiet smile. The light outside dimmed further — the kind of half-light that makes every reflection look like a memory.

Jeeny:
“I think that’s what Dave Barry was getting at,” she said. “It’s not that teens reject wisdom. It’s that they have to earn it. Every generation has to stub its own toe on the same furniture.”

Jack:
“So what you’re saying is — I should stop complaining and let them learn the hard way.”

Jeeny:
“Yes,” she said with a grin. “And maybe remember that someone once thought you were unbearable too.”

Jack:
He chuckled. “Fair enough.”

Host:
They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the muffled laughter of the teens as they spilled out into the rain — hoods up, music blaring, their energy uncontainable.

The door closed behind them, leaving only the faint echo of joy and the smell of rain-soaked pavement.

Jeeny:
“You know,” she said, “there’s something beautiful about the way every generation believes it’s inventing itself. Even if they’re wrong — the belief keeps the world alive.”

Jack:
“Maybe that’s true,” he said. “But sometimes I wish they’d slow down long enough to realize how much of what they’re rebelling against is the same stuff we already tried to fix.”

Jeeny:
“Then it’s not failure,” she said. “It’s continuity.”

Host:
The rain tapered off. A soft light filtered through the clouds, bathing the bookshelves in gentle gold. Jeeny leaned back in her chair, a quiet smile on her lips. Jack followed her gaze out the window, watching a group of kids running across puddles, their laughter splitting the grey afternoon in half.

For a moment, he looked almost young.

Host:
And as the world exhaled, Dave Barry’s humor echoed softly between them, the line carrying both wit and wisdom:

“Your modern teenager is not about to listen to advice from an old person, defined as a person who remembers when there was no Velcro.”

Because maybe that’s how it’s meant to be —
the young running ahead without looking back,
the old smiling behind them, remembering when running felt like flying.

Host:
And as Jack and Jeeny watched the rain-soaked street fill again with life and noise and contradiction,
the distance between the young and the once-young
didn’t feel so wide anymore.

It felt — almost — like a conversation still in progress.