Almost 10 years ago -- God, it's been a decade -- my parents sent me to a boarding school. I can't tell you where it was, or anything like that, yet. I'm still afraid. I can tell you that it wasn't like some rich-kid snootsville country club stint in the Alps. It was a lock-up school. A re-conditioning place. At least, that's what I figured out later. That isn't what we were told before I left.

See, I was having a lot of trouble in regular school. I always had, and that's a long story all by itself. Let's just say I had a hard time dealing with kids my age, and doing shit that they thought was tres important because my daily thoughts were dominated by the dread of going home, and wondering if I'd live to see tomorrow. I ran away a lot, starting when I was nine.

Things came to a head in late 1987, and my parents made an appointment with an educational counselor. The lady must've been in sales in her previous life. She bought them and sold them on this fancy-sounding place, and next I knew, I was on a plane.

The school was brainwashing the kids. I mean, I guess somewhere, someone had had good intentions. Along the way, though, everything had gone to shit. They ripped out who we were, and replaced it with nothing. Not a damn thing. They just pulled off the parts of us they didn't like, and told us we were bad. Negative Association, brainwashing, all that crap.

And I don't care if you believe me or not. I don't even care if you think my time-tainted memouries are wrong or exaggerated. They aren't, and I don't give it a shit who knows about it.

See, I fucked up. I got out while I still could. It wasn't too late for me yet. But I didn't do anything. I didn't say anything. And now, it is too late. The school had their way with those kids -- my friends -- and promptly disappeared off the face of the planet.

If you stick around, I'm sure you'll hear lots more about The School. I'm all weirded out right now, so I'm going to leave off here.