The end of the year and a lot of school groups are coming through.<\/p>\n
“I remember you,” says one 13 year old boy to me.\u00a0 \u201cWe were here last year and that guy was sniffing paint on the opposite platform and he fell over.\u00a0 That was scary.\u201d<\/p>\n
I remembered that day though not the boy.\u00a0 My old friend J had sniffed so much paint out of his plastic bag \u00a0that he actually passed out on platform 2. He’d got up again by the time I got round to check on him. Removing the plastic bag from his face probably helped.<\/p>\n
Platform 1 was full of a school kids who were most concerned about him so I took the opportunity to warn them about the dangers of paint sniffing.<\/p>\n
I was sorry the boy was scared and hastened to reassure him. J hadn’t been in any particular danger that day. \u00a0In the 12 years I\u2019ve been doing this job, I\u2019ve become much more relaxed around people under the influence of substances and I hardly blink at it now. \u00a0(Probably not such a good thing)<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw that guy recently and he told me he\u2019d given up,\u201d I told the boy now.<\/p>\n
The boy expressed doubt.\u00a0 He regarded himself as a worldly youth and said he had relatives who took drugs and they never gave up.\u00a0 Ah,the wisdom of youth! Statistics mean nothing to them.<\/p>\n