And another thing...

Who's your friend?

I picked up the boy from his friends house the other week.It was 10:30pm and he had been there all day.

He got in the car and I almost choked. I could taste the cloud of body spray that surrounded him.

I start hacking and spitting, very dramatically. Opened the window and tried to hang out. He is looking at me very sheepishly.

"Dude, don't ever do this to me again."

"What?"

I roll my eyes. "Do I have moron tattooed to my forehead?"

Silence.

"You know that shit makes me sick...and I can still smell the pot."

I don't know why he thinks he can or has to hide it from me. We have had the discussion. I know he smokes pot. We talked at length about pot vs pills. I drilled it though his head that I will not tolerate pills of any kind. We talked about the fact that you just don't know what people are putting into the pills these days.

Back in my day, we knew exactly what was in everything. One of my friends brothers was in pharmacy school when we were in high school. He would make the shit for us. We never had to worry about what they were cutting it with. (I swear our actual conversation was more profound, but I am paraphrasing for time here)

Anyway, cut to today. I go to pick the boy up at the bus stop and he is not there. Not a big deal, sometimes he decides to go to a fiends after school, and he can't really call me. He usually messages me at work to tell me where he is.

Tonight I had no word. Great. I work myself into a migraine and leave work early. I walk in and the place is dark.

I open his door and he is lying in bed. He is awake, no tv, no computer. He is just lying there. I start to talk to him and he sounds like I woke him. I turn on the light. His eyes are completely bloodshot. I ask him how he got home, he says he walked.

"Why would you walk, your father lives in Who-ville. Why didn't you call him?" It's 15 below zero outside.

He says, "I had a dollar."

"What? Who the hell cares if you had a dollar."

"He does." With that he points to something behind me. I start looking around, maybe he thinks his friend is here with him. There is nothing. It was like talking to someone who was still asleep.

Then he looks at me as if it is the first time he has seen me tonight and says, "What?"

Great, can't wait to find out, what the hell he was on.