Spring (not quite a) Break

Spring Break is about to wrap up for me. I'd like to tell people I did something exciting, but who am I kidding? So far, I've done homework, checked homework, done housework, checked the kids chores, cooked dinner, spent a few hours on the phone with my wife and have given myself a headache from writing a paper on Susan Glaspell's "Trifles"; all the while sleeping alone while my wife is away on business. Not a bad Spring Break, right?

I think it's pretty good, actually. I mean, at least I'm not drunk somewhere naked being filmed doing something incredibly stupid that will later be shown on the Internet. I'm not drunk at a party somewhere volunteering to shoot bottle rockets out from between my butt cheeks. I'm not drunk, finding myself having to urinate with no bathroom around and saying, "Well, hell, the sidewalk is as good a place as any." and ending up in jail. But most importantly, I did NOT try to impress a girl by sticking a geranium up my urethra only to have it's barb-like hairs rip my urethra to shreds causing me an embarrassing ER visit and a complete urethra transplant. See how bad Spring Break can turn out?

All in all, I've spent the last week with 3 of the 4 people I most love to be with. Ironically these same 3 people would lead a person to drink and perhaps perform some of the afore mentioned acts of supreme stupidity. And while I would gladly give my lady a flower, it's bud vase would definitely not be my private parts.

It would have definitely been better if my spring break had coincided with my kids spring break. My wife wouldn't be out of town on business and we could have done something fun. I suppose those are the breaks, though. It's pretty much like having class without having to go to class. This has it's ups and it's downs. I'm not spending money on gas to and from class, but I have to wait until next week to get my test scores from before Spring Break. I'll post again later. CIAO

The WTF moment of February 2007

It's break time. I've got 3 exams tomorrow and I've been pouring through 40 or so pages of notes since 8am. I thought I'd take the break to vent out on a news story I heard about yesterday.

Apparently 17-year-old Demetris McCoy and 18-year-old Vanswan Polty were smoked out of their heads and thought it would be entertaining to get McCoy's nephews high. The boys are 2 and 5. The boys mom, complaining of a tooth ache, was asleep in the back bedroom of the apartment and had asked McCoy to watch the boys. Not only did they coerce the boys to smoke pot, they FILMED it for posterity. The really say part about it is that nobody would have know if the cops hadn't gone to McCoy's apartment to look for stolen goods and found the tape. Nobody would have known?

Now, as I ponder the utter stupidity of these two teenagers (Gee, I think I'll commit two 3rd degree felonies and video tape it so when I get caught, the prosecution won't have a hard time putting my dumb ass in jail) I wonder how the mother didn't know. Pot has a very unique odor. The smoke permeates carpet, furniture, drapes, hair, clothes, basically anything with fibers. The mother says she didn't know what was going on, but apparently the tape shows the 5-year-old smoking all by himself without prompting. This had happened before. How could the mother not know that her brother and his friend were smoking pot in the apartment? At this point my only guess is that she smokes pot too. The boys are in the custody of Child Protective Services now.

As disturbing as that is, what's even more disturbing is listening to McCoy trying to justify his actions in an interview with CNN while in jail. (Where he still is, and it's a good thing too because Texas is a "shall issue" state. That means, if you want a permit for a handgun and you don't have a criminal record, you get the permit. Texas folk are nice till you mess with kids.)

"I seen it on TV, I got embarrassed, man. Make it just look... make it somethin' small. It ain't somethin' small because it kids and giving kids weed, but still, y'all makin' it just over... y'all over exaggerating it, man, with the whole thing. Y'all takin' it too far. Them kids was gonna smoke sooner or later, you know. So. It was gonna eventually happen whether I was to do it or what. I mean, I ain't sayin I'm the first to just 'Here, smoke this blunt', you know what I'm sayin'? They, you know, well, they, you know what I'm sayin'? This ain't nothin' to be famous for. This ain't nothin' good. I'm tellin' y'all, man, it was just somethin', I was high, it was just somethin' that happened. It wasn't supposed to happen. So, that's all I can tell y'all in this interview, and that's all that I'm gonna keep tellin y'all, that I'm sorry for what happened and I'm sorry for the pain that I caused to my sister and family." -- Demetris McCoy, Interview with CNN. (See link for story.) (Transcribed by me.)

They were going to do it anyway?! Sheesh! He wasn't the first to give them a blunt?! OMG Does the prosecution even need to show up? Oh, and the mother is pissed because CPS has her kids. That's laughable. A close second is the Florida man who crashed his car into a State Trooper's patrol car on I-95 this past Sunday. With 43 pounds of pot in the trunk and a stash of cocaine while driving DUI. But I digress.

I've heard of people getting their cats high. I've heard of people getting their dogs high. But kids? Toddlers? I don't have enough space to list the ways that is wrong.

I don't smoke pot or do any other drugs. (I drink sometimes and I use tobacco) I don't condone it either. I would venture a guess that even those of you that smoke pot wouldn't even consider giving it to toddlers.

The cognitive damage that has been done to these kids may be irreparable. I really feel sorry for them. This guy gets a DUMAS award.

Here's the story
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/04/pot.kids/index.html