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I've had a few interesting experiences in my life. I'm about to tell you one of my first interactions with authority and my disregard for it. The catalyst? Dunkaroos. My parents were the type that flat out refused to buy me any processed food and sent me packing with a homemade lunch. Filled with an enormous sandwich, and fruit and all sorts of things a growing boy needs to be healthy. So of course there was no fucking candy. This angered me because when it came to the lunchtime trading, I had sweet fuck all to trade. I would always try to peddle my wares to the lowest bidder, just to get that sugary rush I craved. Theft often crossed my mind, but then I might get caught and go the principals office, a fate worse than death to my 5 year old self. But I waited, hoping some day, I would have something worth trading, or at the very least, someone would feel sorry for me.

Scott Blake was the answer to my prayers.

The day it happened, I changed forever. Trade talks opened at the table and I was sitting beside Scott. We were conversing about the important matter of the day, how a fellow student had soiled themselves when asked to answer a question in front of class, said she didn't know and was scorned slightly by the teacher. She was immediately forgiven, got cleaned up and got to play with the toys while we learned ABCs much to our disdain. Scott made many valid points as this girl "was stupid" and "was a dodo-head anyway". I supported his stance by adding my suspicions of cooties and we began our lunch. And I remember the phrase perfectly...

"Ahh, Dunkaroos again?" Scott lamented in only the way a 5 year old can. I had my in. It was time to act. The following conversation was an example of the negotiating genius I would become someday.

"Well if you don't want those, I've got some cheese and crackers," I said coolly, "They taste pretty good."

"Ok"

Fuck yeah. Transaction completed.

As the Dunkaroos were handed to me, I made eye contact with the kangaroo that would become the love of my life and eventually, the haunter of my dreams. I can remember the feeling of finding the edge of the package that had the loose corner, the tension that built as I pulled it away and the clatter of the 'Roos in the container. The smell of processed chocolate and cookies hit my nostrils and my pupils immediately dilated. Hands trembling, I took the first Roo and dunked it, ever so slowly, in my head measuring out the portions so that each cookie would have an equal amount of chocolate dunk sauce. I lifted it to my mouth placed it in and started to chew.

The next few moments are a blank to me.

When I awoke, I was in my underwear. As I surveyed the room and realized that I was outside on the playground, with a ring of students around me babbling on excitedly. They reared back when I showed signs of movement, fearful for acts I had committed and could not remember. Slowly my blurred vision came into focus and I noticed that just outside of my reach, there was a tattered and ripped container of dunkaroos. I reached out for them.

Suddenly the group broke and a Teacher appeared. I felt colder for some reason.

"Lucas! Come with me to the office this instant!" she screeched.

Although I had heard my dad say it several times and I was told I was never ever allowed to say it under pain of death, I was screaming fuck in my head. The principals office is the last place I wanted to be. Terrified, I rose to my feet. As I was lead towards the school, I turned and looked over my shoulder in time to see my crumbled container of Dunkaroos lift up into the air and vanish behind a car. It would not be the last time Dunkaroos and I met.

It's funny how you remember things in sterling detail when you were terrified in that moment. As I think about it now, it plays out in my head like the slow-motion opening to a heist movie. The door to the school opened and greeted me with the site of two more teachers, each letting us pass before matching pace on my flanks. We passed my classroom first and I peered inside. Tables were flipped over and my teacher was tending to a student who had a cut on their head. the student and I briefly made eye contact before I rounded on the growing crowd in the hallway, recess was now in full force and I was being paraded by my peers like a French aristocrat headed to the guillotine, except I smelled better and there are laws against beheading children in the Canadian Public School system. As I walked fingers pointed out like daggers, piercing me with their accusations. Mouths moved swiftly and excitedly, as rumours tarnished my reputation. After what seemed to be hours, we reached the Principal's office. End intro credits.

I was immediately taken into the Principals office proper and had the door shut behind me. It was here when memories started to trickle back from minutes earlier. When I had started to eat the Dunkaroos the sugar hit my bloodstream and I immediately started to react on instinct. I suddenly gorged myself on the Dunkaroos, sending a massive sugar rush to my body. I stood up from my seat, jumped on my table and with a high-pitched battle-shriek, I tore off my sweatpants.

I'll give you a minute to visualize this image in your mind.....................................And I do mean that I TORE them off.

Drunk with sugary power and feeling freedom after relinquishing the prison of my sweatpants, I started running around the classroom. Laughing maniacally, I started knocking over tables and sending lunches flying, demanding more Dunkaroos. I saw that Jennifer De' Bour had some and I ran over and tried to take them from her, when she resisted I smacked her and stole them away when she dropped them. At this point, I remembered my teacher trying to regain control of the room, and to capture a half naked, raving mad, 5 year old on a sugar rush. In her attempt to corner me, my demonstration of anarchy had started to affect the other children. Scott Blake threw a book at a girl, Matt Small pushed Blake Alton into another table and for some inexplicable reason, Kevin Finnagin pissed in the sandbox. With these new incidents happening I took my chance and bolted for the door out to the hall and immediately down the hall outside, shrieking the entire way.

The sun was blinding as i exploded out the doors and onto the play ground. Burning with adrenaline, i took off my shirt letting the cool wind caress me, invigorating me. as I hurtled myself towards the jungle gym, I heard the doors slam open as 3 teachers ran out towards me like jackals, followed by a horde of surprised primary school students. It was at this time I remembered the dunkaroos clutched in my left hand. I scurried up the play steps to the main structure to finish off my prey. Hidden within the wooden and tire play structure, I ceased my shrieks while I stuffed my face with reckless abandon. As I swallowed the last of the roos and was using my finger to clean out the container of any remaining chocolate sauce, a red faced teacher huffed her way up the chain ladder and looked at me, eyes filled with uncertainty and self doubt with her ability to handle the situation.

I leaped to my feet, hissed at her and bolted for the slide and to freedom.

I hit the ground running and flung myself towards the soccer field, It was here when I started to fade. My sugar strength was slipping away from me and my eye lids began to droop. Exhausted, I fell to my knees and passed out.

This all flashed before my eyes in a second back in the Principals office. In a rare instance of clarity for a 5 year old, I realized the amount of shit I was in. Sitting, facing away from the door, I slowly breathed in and said to myself,

"Fuck."

I failed to hear the door open behind me. A startled gasp alerted me to the vital mistake I just made. The Principal had heard me say fuck. So I did the one thing that I had just learned that would get me out of the situation, no holds attached.

I shit myself.