"Did you bring enough for everyone?"

Of all the topics on this here blog, I'm not sure why this one makes me earnest, but a stoned kid probably needs help and a kind word, not one more petty humiliation from the adults in its life.

I say this with full awareness that kids of all ages are super annoying and I wouldn't want to deal with even the non-stoned ones, but I didn't sign up to be a teacher, either.

If you aren't willing to teach, you shouldn't take away the small bits of joy from those that do.

2: A stoned kid in math class definitely does need help and a kind word, but not while they are actively stoned.

As humiliation goes, this seems very minor indeed. On the other hand, if I were a math teacher and my biggest problem was a stoned kid, I think I'd be thrilled, compared to what some sober kids can be like. Yesterday I tried to be a responsible adult around a probably-roughly-12-year-old who was using a canopy over a jungle gym at a park like a trampoline. If his parents were around I would have talked to them but I suspect he was lying about where to find them. I don't normally get involved in kids being idiots but I didn't want him to break the canopy, or someone under him, or his own neck. It reminded me of the lines about wrestling with a pig or arguing with an idiot, but in the end I (and some other nearby adults) got him to stay on the ground at least until I left, so I consider it a win.

The kid should do better, but that's not a very good place for a math class.

2 is an inspiring display of empathy and compassion, but 3 makes a good point.

if I were a math teacher and my biggest problem was a stoned kid, I think I'd be thrilled

Yes, me too, because presumably that would mean I know how to do the math I'm supposed to be teaching.

I went through high school perpetually stoned, and every now and then a teacher would mess with me about it. I invariably found it hilarious, and I sympathized with them, both because they had to try to teach me stuff, and because they were genuinely concerned.

I sometimes don't know what to make of the Kids Nowadays. They all seem to carry around prescription bottles, but pot consumption has gone down dramatically. I'm willing to grant that their drug choices are superior to mine.

Here's a chart about drug use among young people. The peak use on the chart -- the beginning of the chart -- happens to be the year of my high school graduation.

I was thinking recently that most kids today will never to experience the sheer delight of discovering a poorly-monitored cigarette vending machine.

9: I was about ten years after you and it was not common. We associated pot with old people. We could just buy chewing tobacco at the store. I assume cigarettes too, but I never smoked until I was older.

10 Carvels, on the side not near the order and pickup window. Hadn't thought of it in a long time but your comment is first time I realized that it's an artifact of a very particular time and place.

There was machine at Baltimore Penn Station, where I used to get my Camel Lights.

That sounds better than ice cream and cigarettes.