the child experience

Last week I spent a morning in child psych. The doc specialized in kiddos with substance abuse problems----all the kids live at a ranch in a near by town for a year and they take online high school classes, do gym, and then help out with chores on the ranch.

The first kiddo was really outgoing and friendly. I realized I could be totally manipulated by this kid if the had the brains. He then started telling me what he did before the ranch.

"My first choice was alcohol. I drank A LOT! Then we did cough syrup. Which was great because the only screening test for it costs about a thousand bucks"
-- how much cough syrup did you drink?
"At first it was just a bottle. I quickly developed a tolerance and had to drink almost a liter."
--a liter??(!) how did you purchase all that cough syrup??
"Well, I'm a good writer. I wrote to the nearest cough syrup production company and told them I worked in a lab and that I was doing research on the CNS effects of cough syrup by testing lab rats.....they sent me a shit load."
---oh my god.

(OK I didn't say that- but it was clearly what I was thinking. I am sure my face expressed it and the kid probably totally read me. I am so screwed with the wicked genius kids!)