anthrax - the sequel (and so much dumber)

My son nominated himself for a Darwin award at school on Monday by eating some white powder a kid offered him and four other boys.

No, really. That's how it happened. Didn't even know the kid's name.

I really need to repeat that. Ate some powder. Given by a kid he did not know. It was sweet and kind of sourish. So that narrowed it down from "Many major drugs and poisons" to "a smaller selection of rarer drugs and poisons". Which you know, was comforting, though granted, he'd taken it hours before, so whatever was going to happen would probably have happened.

So he got home, had a tragically bad case of diarrhea, and I tried to find the single most humiliating way to tell the principle about this (and work out wtf he'd eaten). Then I had a moment.

A moment of inspiration, if you will, when he said "It was called picana! Pica something!" Which reminded me abruptly to ask him what teh powder had come in. A little packet. In a big bag like lollipops come in. And powder + flavor + small packet with name pica on it....

Jesus. This. Or the lemon version. This stuff was popular when I was a kid, too, and sold by the packet at the local convenience store. And still is. There's also a surprisingly delicious strawberry and chili pepper ice cream bar made by the same company.

So he doesn't have anthrax. He does, however, have the memory of the long night of having to write out the series of events in autobiographical form three times and an hour of me explaining the various types of powder-related death and my first draft of a speech that I told him I'd give in front of his class about dramatic adventures in diarrhea.

This is going to make him anorexic, isn't it? Or not eat things randomly from packets from kids whose name he doesn't even know. I'm going to admit--I was ready for the sex speech and tolerance speech and religion speech and the speech on feminism and equality and racism and being a boy. I did don't talk to strangers, if kidnapped, bite for blood, kick for breaking things, and scream like you mean it. I explained good touch, bad touch, how to handle bullies, and why it's important to tell me. I covered homework.

I missed the mysterious white powder speech, apparently. Please add this to all parent curriculum plans in the future. Header "Darwin's Ways to Die".

Comments

[lillian13.livejournal.com]

Look at it as thing #5489 you can hold over his head for the rest of his life.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

He has three or four copies of the narrative of what led to this. I'm keeping them all for future use.

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

I'm laughing with relief, and because it's so true. You never think of all the speeches.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO SEE THAT COMING? I actually gaped for a second, thinking, where did I miss that talk? It was surreal.

[tex.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Boys. Girls never do this kind of thing. We just talk behind each others backs and do passive-aggressive stuff until somebody calls somebody's mother.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*facepalm* I need to think up more detailed and highly terrifying speeches at some point. *shudders*

[viggorlijah.livejournal.com]

hee! Man, the number of dumb things I did as a kid that were perilous. Running races over giant tubes across concrete drains, playing "stuff each other in the freezer" and whether we could do the knife dancing trick or not.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I try not to reflect too much on my childhood, because Child is *way too much* like me and that can only lead to his life in a bubble.

[thepouncer.livejournal.com]

It's wrong that I'm laughing, isn't it?

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I had to leave the room when I realized what it was and giggle for a while. I waited on telling him since he was writing version two of his narration of events that led to his death.

I just--seriously. Random powder? God.

[bethcarielle.livejournal.com]

I think the mysterious white powder speech is in the same missing handbook as the why it's bad idea to snort pixie sticks speech.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

...that speech is tomorrow. I need to make a list. Soon.

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

I can sympathize. Last year my son and another buddy came across a can of "something" on the blacktop called "Fart Spray." They were on their way to class so decided to pick it up, bring it to class, and then their curiosity got the better of them. They thought that it couldn't POSSIBLY be that bad, so they sprayed just a little. You know where this is going. The teacher had to immediately evacuate the classroom and no classes could be held in there for the rest of the afternoon. Fans were commissioned to rid the room of this truly horrible odor. So, TRUTH IN ADVERTISING!!!!!!!!!! If it says fart spray, believe it!

[seperis.livejournal.com]

...oh dear God. No.

*CHOKES*

That must have been unreal.

*quickly adds that to speech list*

[fanofall.livejournal.com]

*Makes mental note to self* because Bean is really just that...Darwin-y. THANK YOU for taking one for the team!

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I live to help.

*points up* pir8fancier mentions Fart Spray. Add that too.

[deadlychameleon.livejournal.com]

I do have a "don't smoke random drugs you find in the park" speech worked out. Because, well, I knew people who did that in college. In the early 2000s, not 60s.

Middle school kids snorted altoids at my school. Yeah, I dunno, apparently mimicking drug taking is a way of dealing with the idea? A form of play-acting? Pretending to do what the big kids do?

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*dies* Okay, that one I never would have thought of. Or the altoids!

[suzvoy.livejournal.com]

Holy crap!

[seperis.livejournal.com]

It was an adventure.

[dragojustine.livejournal.com]

*giggles helplessly*

That is a heck of a list of speeches.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I am just getting started. I feel he may need obscure warnings as well.

[just-meeh-here.livejournal.com]

I laughed so hard I woke up my roommate and had to explain it to him. Just wait until chem class. At 15 i was dared to take the "asprin" we made. I did take it... So, um I am blaming that incident on my rapid decline ever since.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

God, don't even say it. He has a chemistry set and there's something sealed in a tube that moves that's been like that for about a year. We are pretty much terrified to go near it.

*whimpers* Nonono.

[brownbetty]

This is going to look like Skippy's list when you're done, isn't it.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Maybe an anti-Evil Overlord list, of a kind.

[j-bluestocking.livejournal.com]

When I first read this I could not get the picture out of my mind of your son eating some white powder and four other boys.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*chokes* See, though, we've talked about cannibalism. Don't ask. It--happened. I was ready for that.

[edana-ni-emer.livejournal.com]

At least it's not as bad (yet) as a good friend of mine, who's stories of his childhood always end with "...and then I woke up in the hospital." Including the time he got his hands on one of the *real* chemistry sets they used to sell and managed to somehow create chlorine gas.

Yes.

Chlorine gas.

Count your blessings. ;-)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*facepalm* That, right there, is teh reason I showed him ammonia, bleach and why these were not experiment parts.

God. Chlorine gas. *boggles* I sometimes have nightmares about Sarin being reinvented in our bathroom one night.

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

Whoa. My stupid childhood thing was only to stuff others or being stuffed in big cardboard boxes without air holes ;)

But anyway. It's totally different now. Before it was like, "Don't talk to strange adults" and "Don't take candy from strangers". Now it's "Don't take white powder, or strange little stickers, or hand rolled cigarettes, or pills of any kind from people you don't know well, even if they are the same age as you are."

I stopped buying candy in other way than in sealed bags after aluminium sulfide or something like that was poured over the bag-it-yourself candy selection in a super store in my city. It was kids who poured the poison as a joke. It's not only malicious adults that you'll have to protect your kid form, it's moron kids, too :(

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Oh my God. Really?

*TWITCHING*

[mad-jaks.livejournal.com]

You're a hard woman *G*

It's because it was another child... other children are not 'strangers' to kids they are well, you know, 'other kids' you know he wouldn't have taken it otherwise really, don't you.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

This is true. There are no stranger children. *sighs*

[ender24]

I know , in the aftermath this is suppose to be fun, but isnt this covered under your speech, you surely had that one: NEVER EVER TAKE ANY GIFTS FROM STRANGERS! even if its free !!
and looks like a yummy drug?

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*sighs* Strangers, sure, but apparently, other kids dont' count. Though *now* they do. *grimly*

[jade-dragoness.livejournal.com]

Didn't this fall under the 'don't take candy from strangers' speech? Really? Unknown powders and liquids should fall under the candy speech. *shakes head sadly*

Also, I'm so making a note of all the speeches on this list for when I have kids. Some, I didn't even think of.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Yes, but I guess fellow kids dont' count. Which is--not something I would have considered as a subsection. Hell, don't take mysterious powders from *anyone*--that is what I am adding.

[soho-iced.livejournal.com]

I remember eating a leaf from my granddad's (pretty wild) garden in South Africa, when I was rather a lot old enough to know better, and the subsequent freaking out. I couldn't really give a reason, it was just a spur of the moment thing. Fortunately it just made my mouth sting a bit.

... It's things like this that give me deep admiration for the nerves of everyone with children, and worry even more about my hypothetical future ones.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*nods* This. Yes.

[thisisbone.livejournal.com]

1) I'm incredibly impressed with your reaction/action. Essays are genius! Moves the ball to his court for the repetition and there's something intrisically memorable about writing shit down. Did you find out about the powder during the listing of what he ate during the day? Or did he volunteer that?

2) I'm going to need copies of these: "I did don't talk to strangers, if kidnapped, bite for blood, kick for breaking things, and scream like you mean it. I explained good touch, bad touch, how to handle bullies, and why it's important to tell me. I covered homework. So far, my kid still doesn't roam beyond eyesight, but I know it's coming, and she has no skills-set yet.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I found out originally because he looked guilty and because of teh diarrhea--during the narrative, I was trying to (being multitask) teach him how to tell a coherent story so was questioning on the powder. And then click.

My big one on kidnapping was fight back to get attention on him. I told him if it turned out it was my best friend forever and he just at that moment didn't recognize them, that was okay! And the exception to the hitting rule.

[ladycat777.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm torn like eight directions. It's hilarious that's what the powder actually is, but also thank god it was nothing more serious, because seriously, wtf, random kids, and also, I am deeply impressed by your parenting skills. Which I've said before, but bear repeating. Scary as hell though that was, I suspect Child ain't ever doing this again.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Gah, my parenting skills. I can just feel all this showing up in therapy or something. Though now he'll understand how to narrate his trauma in story form.

[marthawells.livejournal.com]

Yikes! It's funny that it was just candy, but jeeze, what a scare.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, less than fun until we figured out what it was. Just--gah.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Yikes! And hee! and more Yikes!

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*heee* It was one of those days, man.

[sobelle.livejournal.com]

Whoa! that IS scary (and sadly amusing). I really don't know how I got through it with my 2 (grown) sons. It's true that several of their uncles (and my ex) had ~problems~ with substance abuse... so I had "on hand" example of what NOT to do.

The day to day reminder for my spawn was what appeared to be the peace sign but in fact represented 2 words... Pay Attention. Otherwise, I just got lucky.

Good luck m'dear! =)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*grins* We talked about drugs several times as it shows up on TV or the news. I was actually surprised by *his* shock that someone would give him drugs unknowingly--he'd focused, and I'd focused, on teh temptation to buy them factor.