Q&complAints #602 : Advice to Teenage Self

What advice would you give to your teenage self?

Post your answer in the LEAVE A COMMENT section below. I’m not the boss of you, though. Don’t write anything for all I care! Maybe just ask yourself what 14-year-old you would have done.
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. . .here are my thoughts.

What advice would you give to your teenage self?

My favorite childhood movie, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, is a musical.  This fact never occurred to me until I watched its prequel Wonka, and noticed it’s also listed as a musical.  Wonka includes numerous callbacks.  Or perhaps these should be termed call-forwards since the prequel is referencing the original.  The lesson of “Read the fine print” is the biggest call-forward (I’m going with it) in Wonka.  Our protagonist essentially signs himself into indentured servitude via a contract so ridiculously strict that it would never stand up to legal scrutiny.  Wonka pays his hard-learned life lesson forward in the original film.  Charlie and Grandpa Joe don’t read fine print on the wall they sign prior to beginning their tour of the chocolate factory.  Near the film’s end, Wonka initially denies them their destined rewards because of the whole fizzy lifting drink fiasco which violates the impossibly fine print of Section 37B.  Charlie, however, proves his mettle and integrity by returning the Everlasting Gobstopper, after which Willy concedes complete control of the chocolate factory to him.  So, teenaged me, don’t read the fine print!  Keep blindly accepting those Terms of Agreement.


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