They took my tape when I was 16 and, wait for it… institutionalized. Not even joking. Hospital said it was about suicide, verboten.

Good times. I was snow-white, solid student, no problems, but not quite a virgin. :) The badass kids taught me about smoking, weed, Black Sabbath, Ozzy/Randy Rhodes and Metallica.

And the rest:

• Learned pool and pool etiquette. We got to where we could hop on top of the bumper for bank shots. Lots of time on our hands. Sticks were warped, barely had tips.
• Wrestled two giant mohicans (the haircut, not the ethnicity), and every one else, kinda held my own until the giant picked me up and touched my soles to the ceiling tiles. Tapped out like a wuss.
• Learned from a male nurse exactly what happens to a teenager if they jump off the six-story roof. Yes, the shoes fly off the corpse. Ex-wife was a trauma nurse, said the same.
• Got a gf and played around under the blanket watching (supervised) Christmas movies (they knew)
• Were we learning 5th grade reading and math. Everyone thought Robin was smart because she could read and do basic arithmetic. “I can too!” Nobody cared, Robin was cute and I wasn’t.
• On that note, I had just got over chicken pox. At 16. Everyone thought I had acne from hell. Still have the scars after 40-years.
• Said gf ran away with my roommie when they took us to the park for a Wang Chung concert. They were caught and thrown in solitary rooms. LOL, what a clusterfuck for the staff.
• Got a new roommate who was a huge, black jock (cool guy). Was a little worried to come back from the concert and find him pumping pushups. Dude was fucking ripped. (Hey, I had never known any black guys or jocks. And jocks were the guys who beat our asses.)
• Figured out how to remove the closet wall so we could visit the next room over and trade contraband food. All guys unfortunately. We found the rooms blocked over the drop ceilings though. :( Imagine what a bunch of 15-17 year-old, horny trouble makers would get into. Be all like Die Hard in that ceiling.
• Last night, got evacuated to the gym for a false fire alarm my buddy set. LOL, we were running through the admin offices, robbin’ and stealin’. Tried to get under the blanket with Robin, the “smart” girl, was really hoping to hook up on the outside. We made eyes at each other listening to Kansas, Dust in the Wind. Didn’t quite win her over.
• Got back to school and dropped in after the last bell. Got mobbed by my classmates. “DUDE! Did you really stab your mom with a FORK!” Uh. Wut?

Damned good times! I cried when mom took me home. Haven’t thought on that in years and years.

EDIT: If you grew up in the 80s, you get the song. ALL the media was about how to recognize if your teen was on drugs. And that’s how I ended up institutionalized and had never even smoked a cigarette.