Steven King’s New Horror: The American Education System

(A group of older teenagers walks in and one greets a Shih Tzu in a cart. The dog barks and growls at her, sending her running. The teenagers come up to my register a short time later.)

Me: “Oh, you were the one scared by the little dog.”

Teenager #1: “Yeah! He almost bit me!”

Me: “Yeah, he was a mini Cujo, huh?”

(There’s a short pause.)

Teenager #2: “What’s a mini Cujo?”

(I pause and wait for one of her friends to explain, but they have the same blank look.) 

Teenager #2: “Is that like a type of dog?”

Me: “Uh, it’s a book by Stephen King about a Saint Bernard that’s bitten by a bat and contracts rabies and then goes around attacking and killing people.” 

(They all gasp and joke that [Teenager #1] is going to get rabies.) 

Me: “Yeah, just a crazy dog analogy.”

Teenager #3: *as they are on their way out* “What’s an analogy?”

(I think I died a little bit inside that day.)