The IQ test was fun. An hour ish of little puzzles. If you have two buckets, one of five gallons and one of three gallons, how do you measure exactly one gallon of water? I enjoyed it.

My favorite: "If you're walking across the school playground and you realize you've dropped your keys, how would you go about finding them?" Retrace my steps, duh.

If I'd known its purpose and outcome I'd have answered every question resoundingly with "I dunno".

They pressured my mother. He'll stagnate, he'll be bored, he'll drop out, he'll become a delinquent, be an addict and a commie and turn gay. My mother trusted experts. She was passive and conflict-averse. Done deal with her. I said no and I was right. We'd just moved, I'd just lost and made new friends, I was settling in to my new school. If they send me to school across town I'll always be "different". I don't want to be different, I want to be like everyone else. I still do.

I have a vivid memory of an alcoholic neighbor, swirling a glass of bourbon on ice in the hot summer afternoon, slurring her words as she insisted, "Us intelligent people gotta stikka gether." If anyone with a clue were paying attention, that should have been the tipper.

I was right but I lost, because kids have no power and their insights are not respected. I knew it was disaster, which, it was. It was three years of daily misery which I learned to avoid by faking illness, concealing my realities, lying habitually, drinking alcohol, taking drugs, and mistrusting any adult with even the most minute modicum of power of decision.