Friday night I went to a potluck dinner at a friend's house, and there were several two and three-year-old children there. You know how a roomful of adults act when somebody brings in a baby. They all turn to look at the child, give big fake smiles, and start calling out in syrupy voices to try and charm said child. Then the child gets an alarmed, suspicious look on its face like it's thinking "Woah, this party's full of narcs," and starts either trying to leave or hide behind the parent.
I don't know if teens still get paranoid about narcs, or narcotics agents, infiltrating the school or parties they attend. In my day you heard rumors like that all the time. "That new girl's a narc." "Don't burn one in front of him, he's a narc." Nobody could document an actual case of somebody getting busted for partying in front of an undercover agent, but we were all on the lookout for one.
I was at a party at my friend Ron's once back in the day, and a friend of ours named Josephus brought a friend of his that might as well have been carrying a nightstick and wearing a badge. He was a little older than we were, and big, like he lifted weights. His hair was stunning - a perfectly coiffed blond cross between televangelist and pro wrestler. I thought it might even be a wig. Dude, his name was Rolf, was trying too hard in every way. It lead you to think he'd contrived his look based on what his staff seargent thought kids would really respond to. Rolf hung around the mall all the time.
It wasn't like rumor-mongering caused people to slip out of the room seconds after Rolf walked in. He just caused everybody's internal narc alarms to go off. Rolf and Josephus kept looking for the party in Ron's apartment and it kept vanishing around them and reappearing in another room.
Finally Josephus got pissed off and yelled at everybody. "What's wrong with you people? He's not a narc, dammit! Get over it!"
But nobody could get over it and that's the last time I ever saw Rolf at Ron's.
I don't know if teens still get paranoid about narcs, or narcotics agents, infiltrating the school or parties they attend. In my day you heard rumors like that all the time. "That new girl's a narc." "Don't burn one in front of him, he's a narc." Nobody could document an actual case of somebody getting busted for partying in front of an undercover agent, but we were all on the lookout for one.
I was at a party at my friend Ron's once back in the day, and a friend of ours named Josephus brought a friend of his that might as well have been carrying a nightstick and wearing a badge. He was a little older than we were, and big, like he lifted weights. His hair was stunning - a perfectly coiffed blond cross between televangelist and pro wrestler. I thought it might even be a wig. Dude, his name was Rolf, was trying too hard in every way. It lead you to think he'd contrived his look based on what his staff seargent thought kids would really respond to. Rolf hung around the mall all the time.
It wasn't like rumor-mongering caused people to slip out of the room seconds after Rolf walked in. He just caused everybody's internal narc alarms to go off. Rolf and Josephus kept looking for the party in Ron's apartment and it kept vanishing around them and reappearing in another room.
Finally Josephus got pissed off and yelled at everybody. "What's wrong with you people? He's not a narc, dammit! Get over it!"
But nobody could get over it and that's the last time I ever saw Rolf at Ron's.
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