I'm Not High by Jim Breuer

looked down at his watch and unholstered his walkie-talkie. “False alarm! False alarm!” he shouted into it. “Don’t evacuate the mall!”
    “Cops are already on the way!” someone chirped back through his speaker. This wasn’t going to end well. Or maybe it was. Two of my dad’s sons from his first marriage were cops in Valley Stream. The mall was Gary’s beat, and sure enough, he was on duty that day. Gary marched into Sears and huddled soberly with the security guard before walking over to me, shaking his head.
    “Jim,” he said. “Stay off the phone.” I was lucky to get off without getting arrested, but an internal report was filed. And this report worked its way through the corporate bureaucracy, all the way to the top. I was soon notified that I had to meet with the president of Sears’s New York district at his office in Roosevelt Field, Long Island.
    One week later, I showered, combed my hair, put on my only suit, and took the train to meet with the president. I sat down in front of his desk. He tried to appear stern, but I thought I could detect a smirk.
    “Let’s hear your side of things,” he said, standing up and pacing his office floor. Looking back, I was very fortunate that there hadn’t really been any major bombings or school shootings back then.
    I started to explain. “Well, I was done with all my work. I shouldn’t have made a prank phone call, but every once in a while I’ll admit that I call up other departments as a character, just to be silly. The fellow I called was being a little territorial about his store section. A little excessive, I felt. And I promise you, sir, with God as my witness, I said I was Muammar Gaddafi. Do you think that Gaddafi would really single out the Valley Stream Sears, go to the trouble of getting their phone number, then specifically contact the hardware department, telling whomever answered the phone that he was targeting it with missiles?”
    The president scratched his chin and paced some more. “Yeah, I get that, Jim,” he said. “No one in their right mind would have bought this, but even still ...”
    In the end, I didn’t get canned. I had to apologize in person to Jack, and about two weeks later, he quit, because pretty much everyone else who worked at Sears would walk by him shouting, “Muammar Gaddafi!”
    Beyond those incidents, I have to say I was a pretty good kid. Maybe even na��ve, based on my age and where I lived. When I turned thirteen and kids at junior high and high school started talking about house parties, I had no idea what they were talking about. It was difficult to imagine. I was shocked they were willingly inviting people in to trash their parents’ houses. The stories came mostly from jocks who’d brag about it.
    “Hey, Breuer,” one of the kids I played baseball with said one day after practice. He was tall and skinny, a popular guy, kind of the ring-leader of the bunch. A group of our teammates gathered around us. “When’s it gonna be your turn?”
    “To what?” I asked.
    “To start throwing parties,” he said.
    “Like with beer and stuff?” I said. “Never. Fat chance of that.”
    “You chicken?” he said, playfully taunting me.
    “No. But why would you have a twenty-person party at your parents’ house?” I asked. “My God, if any of you numb-nuts knocked off even one wing off my mom’s Hummel figurines, I’d kill you.” I said that probably because I knew I’d never hear the end of it from my mom.
    “Sure you would,” he said, and the kids laughed.
    “Whatever,” I said. “You really have that little respect for your parents?”
    “Well,” he said, “maybe you’re just not ready yet. Maybe it’s because you hang out with a bunch of younger kids watching Mickey Mouse.”
    “You talkin’ about the kids from my block?” I asked. “They’re a lot cooler than hanging out with you guys, smoking pot and hanging out in your parents’ basement. That’s idiotic.”
    Despite what