Drug Abuse Resistance Education
My neighbor asked me, “You like to paint, right?” Inwardly I groaned, I hate to paint, but outwardly I eagerly agreed to help spruce up her bathroom. That’s the thing: people are always presuming that I like to paint. It’s because, I think, I spent three summer vacations from college painting houses. I didn’t paint these houses for affection, but because it is exceedingly difficult for an aspiring anthropologist to find pertinent work in rural Illinois. So, whenever someone, usually family, needed something painted, they knew I’d be willing.
As a self employed amateur, rather than a professional, I lacked the luxurious implements—drop clothes and brush extenders—that real house painters use. But it also meant that I didn’t have to wear a white jump suit or little cap. Most of the time I painted house in my bathing suit, rationalizing this inappropriate attire with the necessary nature of a good tan.
In 2005 I painted the exterior of my grandmother’s house. My services were then referred to my father’s distant cousin David Hanold. David was looking for new renters for his home, the chain smoking tenant and his chain smoking dog had moved out of the rental house after twenty years, and it was time to clean the place up a bit. I was the “professional” for the job, even going so far as to don relatively professional attire (pants)!
The nicotine stained walls needed a serious primer and so I spent hours coating them with the very toxic Kilz oil paint. Generously, I tried to share the wealth, and so hired my younger brother Richard as an apprentice to the trade. One hot summer afternoon, we were hard at work in the little second floor bathroom, slapping paint on the walls and, for the first time, not worrying about the floors. (David was concerned about our promise to “just be very careful” and bought a brand new, heavy duty, canvas drop cloth for the job.) Earlier in the day, I had removed the light fixtures from beside the vanity, but I neglected to turn off the electricity. So, as I painted, my hand brushed the hot wire, which subsequently shocked me, causing me to scream in pain and surprise and then knock the glass light shade that had been balanced precariously on the side of the sink to the ground. The glass shattered and the paint brush went flying. As I regained my faculties, I looked at Richard and noticed that he was completely ashen and stunned. I grabbed his shoulders and started shaking them. “Richard! I’ve still got the electricity in me!” He started screaming, until he realized he wasn’t being electrocuted, and then demanded that I “don’t do that to somebody!”
We had nearly finished that little bathroom and had only to paint behind the door. With the door and the window closed, though, the necessary circulation of air came to a stop. Gradually our vision darkened and our heads began to swim. From somewhere beyond my cloudy brain, I heard Richard tell me he couldn’t see. “Keep painting,” I slurred, as though this was a very important life or death situation, “keep painting Richard.” We continued to massacre our brain cells and throw paint at the walls until I was satisfied that we had covered everything (desperation made that decision, since at this point I had lost my vision as well). In a panic, I swung open the door and grabbed Richard and together we stumbled down the stairway. In hindsight, a worry emerges that maybe I had managed to kill us both; at the time, though, there was no thinking: only an absolutely insatiable need for oxygen. In what was surely a sensational sprint, we made it to the kitchen door and then flung ourselves onto the grass outside.
I don’t know how long we sprawled there, waiting for the world to stop spinning, but I can guarantee that I have never been so high or nearly so nauseous.
That fall, I volunteered for an afterschool tutoring program in the projects of Dorchester. As the afternoon waned, the students asked for a story and so, without really thinking, I told them about the time my brother and I painted our cousin’s bathroom. I finished and looked up to see the other tutors, my roommate Priscilla in particular, aghast. I am an expert at recognizing teaching points, though, and so I nicely hammered home the lesson. In a redeeming finish I told them, “and that, children, is why you should never do drugs!”
As a self employed amateur, rather than a professional, I lacked the luxurious implements—drop clothes and brush extenders—that real house painters use. But it also meant that I didn’t have to wear a white jump suit or little cap. Most of the time I painted house in my bathing suit, rationalizing this inappropriate attire with the necessary nature of a good tan.
In 2005 I painted the exterior of my grandmother’s house. My services were then referred to my father’s distant cousin David Hanold. David was looking for new renters for his home, the chain smoking tenant and his chain smoking dog had moved out of the rental house after twenty years, and it was time to clean the place up a bit. I was the “professional” for the job, even going so far as to don relatively professional attire (pants)!
The nicotine stained walls needed a serious primer and so I spent hours coating them with the very toxic Kilz oil paint. Generously, I tried to share the wealth, and so hired my younger brother Richard as an apprentice to the trade. One hot summer afternoon, we were hard at work in the little second floor bathroom, slapping paint on the walls and, for the first time, not worrying about the floors. (David was concerned about our promise to “just be very careful” and bought a brand new, heavy duty, canvas drop cloth for the job.) Earlier in the day, I had removed the light fixtures from beside the vanity, but I neglected to turn off the electricity. So, as I painted, my hand brushed the hot wire, which subsequently shocked me, causing me to scream in pain and surprise and then knock the glass light shade that had been balanced precariously on the side of the sink to the ground. The glass shattered and the paint brush went flying. As I regained my faculties, I looked at Richard and noticed that he was completely ashen and stunned. I grabbed his shoulders and started shaking them. “Richard! I’ve still got the electricity in me!” He started screaming, until he realized he wasn’t being electrocuted, and then demanded that I “don’t do that to somebody!”
We had nearly finished that little bathroom and had only to paint behind the door. With the door and the window closed, though, the necessary circulation of air came to a stop. Gradually our vision darkened and our heads began to swim. From somewhere beyond my cloudy brain, I heard Richard tell me he couldn’t see. “Keep painting,” I slurred, as though this was a very important life or death situation, “keep painting Richard.” We continued to massacre our brain cells and throw paint at the walls until I was satisfied that we had covered everything (desperation made that decision, since at this point I had lost my vision as well). In a panic, I swung open the door and grabbed Richard and together we stumbled down the stairway. In hindsight, a worry emerges that maybe I had managed to kill us both; at the time, though, there was no thinking: only an absolutely insatiable need for oxygen. In what was surely a sensational sprint, we made it to the kitchen door and then flung ourselves onto the grass outside.
I don’t know how long we sprawled there, waiting for the world to stop spinning, but I can guarantee that I have never been so high or nearly so nauseous.
That fall, I volunteered for an afterschool tutoring program in the projects of Dorchester. As the afternoon waned, the students asked for a story and so, without really thinking, I told them about the time my brother and I painted our cousin’s bathroom. I finished and looked up to see the other tutors, my roommate Priscilla in particular, aghast. I am an expert at recognizing teaching points, though, and so I nicely hammered home the lesson. In a redeeming finish I told them, “and that, children, is why you should never do drugs!”
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