When I was a kid, teachers at school were always telling me to say no to drugs. But in doing so, they almost always came up with outlandish situations where other kids were just sitting around waiting to offer me drugs in the first place.
Once, after a swimming lesson, I was waiting for my mom to pick me up. I noticed some kids standing nearby. They appeared to be popping pills. They looked like pink and white capsules. They were exactly the shape and size of the drugs that had been depicted in numerous photocopied DARE handouts.
One kid noticed me looking over at them and held one of the pills out to me.
"You want one?" he asked.
Finally the moment had come. I was being offered drugs. And, I knew what to do.
"No," I said.
The kid shrugged and went about his business. That was easy, I thought. None of that over-the-top peer pressure I'd always been warned about. No switch blades. Just a shrug. Just saying no apparently did work, after all.
When my mom showed up to pick me up, I hopped into the car and told her all about what had happened.
"There were kids taking drugs at the swimming pool," I said.
"What?" my mom asked. "What did the drugs look like?"
"Pink and white pills," I said.
"Oh," my mom said. "They sound like Good 'n' Plenty's. You should have taken one. They're good."
She would have failed DARE.
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