Social Work Madness

I decided to be adventurous with my blog and make a pretty layout. Anyway, as promised, I'm going to start blogging about some crazy stories from work. To start, in my job, we usually have clients that either take a lot of our time, drive us absolutely mad, or both. As a result, when we often come up with quick, catchy code names when we're sharing stories (commiserating) with other coworkers. Examples: "The Crazy Lady," "The PCP Mom," "The Boy with the Cast," "The Sweet One," etc. etc. I will start off my story with my PCP Mom.

So, PCP Mom, despite the name, is actually pretty nice. I can tell she's a little depressed whenever I talk to her over the phone, but hey, if your kids were taken away from you, you'd be depressed too. This family originally came into the system as part of a raid with the cops. Apparently this place is a gang hangout where people sell drugs, and there were all of these semi-automatic weapons in the home at the time of the raid. She claims that it used to be a gang hangout and that it isn't anymore. Except that everytime I've gone over there, there is *always* a random man sitting on the front door step, and *always* other random men hanging around the perimeter. All wearing large white tees (a gang thing) and I think they generally stick to green. I'm not stupid, people. And when you say you're her "cousin" I happen to think that you're not her biological cousin but her "street" cousin (crip gang members often refer to each other as "cuz" - ebonics for "cousin"). Blonde hair is a great thing in this job, because people automatically assume you are naive and don't know about these things. Anyway, I digress.

Anyway, this mom has to get drug tested, as many of our parents do. She had a couple clean tests. Then, she got this test that came up positive (192 ng/mL) of PCP. (if you were nerdy enough to read the link, one thing it didn't mention was that it basically used to be a horse tranquilizer - why people put that in their body, I don't know). I get a few more positive tests. Not good. So, I ask her about this. The dialogue goes like this:

"So, PCP Mom [name changed.... come on people I'm not that mean to my clients], when is the last time you've used PCP?"

"I used it around the time that my house was raided." (mid-November)

"Hmm... are you sure?"

"Yes..."

"Well, that's interesting, because I'm looking at a test from January 3rd that says that you had 192 ng/mL of PCP in your system, and another test from January 8th that says that you had 32 ng/mL of PCP in your system."

"No..... no...... no, that can't be right.... oh no...." (at this point her voice is starting to crack and I'm feeling a little bad for her. If she had had 5 clean tests and no positives come the hearing in a couple weeks, she could have had unmonitored visits with her kids. But it is what it is.) "That must be wrong. It must be the test site."

"Well, Ms. PCP Mom, I have before positives from two different testing sites, so I don't know if I can blame it on that." [trying to see if I can give her the benefit of the doubt, I look on my drug chart, which tells me that PCP is in the sytem for 3-8 days, and that in a chronic user, it might be in the system for up to a month] "Ms. PCP, in November, back when you say you used it, how often did you use it?"

"Oh, once in a blue moon."

"Well, I don't know what to say, Ms. PCP. I'm looking at a drug test result here that is not favorable, and this is what the judge care about. How can you explain this?"

"Well, you know, my friends sometimes use my car and they leave their stale cigarettes in there. Sometimes I smoke the butts they leave behind, because I do smoke cigarettes. Maybe they were laced with something?"

"Okay... well, after you smoke your friends' cigarette butts, do you notice feeling different than when you just smoke a cigarette?"

"No."

"Okay... well, regardless, you should still be very careful about what you're smoking next time, because these aren't good. I will be giving you drug counseling referrals when I see you next."

I come in the next morning with a message on my phone from her: "Hi, Allana, this is PCP Mom. I was just talking to my friend and he said that he's been smoking it. So you know what I think? It was second hand smoke." (That is the oldest story in the book of excuses, my friends)

However, this one is creative. I get a phone call a little bit later. It's her boyfriend, Boo. Yes, thats what he goes by. Another list of reasons why they are so obviously gang people. (Just to forewarn you, some of you may be offended by this). "Hi, this is Boo. PCP Mom... she's a good girl. And she doesn't know everything I do. See, my friends and me, we all hang in the street, and she doesn't know what we do on the streets. I've been the one doing PCP. And PCP makes me really horny, so we end up doing it all the time. And you know I'm just sweating on her and then she has to go pee in a cup.... I think it's my stuff that's giving her the positive test."

[Holding my hand over the phone trying not to laugh] ".... So.... you're saying that your semen is positive for PCP and she pees your PCP-positive semen in a cup and that's how she gets the positive test?"

"Yeah... you know, those cops. They're out to get me. They know all my friends have a rap sheet, but I don't. They're just trying to catch me... and now they're getting to me through her. People don't understand what it's like being a black man in the hood. Everyone thinks you're up to no good. But she's a great girl. And I'll do anything for her."

I thank him for his phone call. And then hang up the phone and laugh. Okay, I'm no biologist, but I'm sorry, if semen can even get a positive drug test result (which it can't), I doubt it can in the amount of 192 ng/mL. Especially when the pee that you're peeing in a cup is diluting the PCP-saturated semen. Come on people...