Not all youngins’ are bad

I’m not in a good mood. It may not seem like a big deal to some but this sort of stuff just drives me crazy. I get anxiety attacks from this sort of thing. My friend Tom(18) and I(17) were out at a gaming cafe for a couple hours. After that we drove just down to the next plaza over to the pizza place. After eating we decided to go for a walk around to let our bellies settle so Tom and I walked around to just talk and chill. We were in a Pep Boys parking lot and saw this shopping cart near the back with some stuff in it. We went up to the shopping cart to check it out. It was just some old wet boxes and torn garbage bags. Looked like stuff from the store that either an employee picked up and put in the cart or a customer just dumped there. Well it seems some employees were watching us in the parking lot so we decided to walk back to the car which was a bit of a distance. We were about to get into the car and a white truck with a Pep Boys employee in it came to us and started asking us stuff and said they already called the cops saying we dumped garbage in the shopping cart. I was like “huh?” I said it looked old and wet but he didn’t seem to care. Knowing that the cops were coming we agreed and didn’t want to have a problem. I asked where the dumpster was. And we walked over there quickly and as we were walking over the man in the white truck nearly hits Tom with the truck. It doesn’t help that he is deaf so he can’t hear something like that coming. So we got over there and we picked up the stuff and pushed the cart to the dumpster in the back of the place and pushed the cart back to the front of the place with the rest of the shopping carts. Right before we left we walked back to the five employees waiting outside in the corner of the parking lot to say it’s done. The man says “don’t you ever do that again” and such. So we left and got back into the car and drove back down to the gaming cafe.

It just ticks me off that people just assume that young people always cause trouble. He didn’t even check my story but I restrained myself from arguing. Tom just wanted to get it done with and not say anything back. The freaking garbage was wet from the rain and why would we walk all that distance to dump a couple bags of wet garbage bags and boxes that originated from Pep Boys! We don’t do drugs, smoke, drink, or do anything like that. Both of us are members of AFJROTC and we volunteer in the community.