This morning the phone rings. It is the "Attendance Coordinator" from P.S. (New York Public Schools) 124. In my day, they called these people Truant Officers or the Dean's secretary, but I'll give them Attendance Coordinator. In this modern age of barely sensical job titles (I go as Systems Architect at more self indulgent periods) how can I fault them. The AC was asking about the low attendance of a student named Scarlet last name held to protect the truant.

Here is were I fail. This is obviously a wrong number. I may have illegitimate children throughout the city, but I know for sure that there isn't a child named Scarlet living at my house, at least I'm pretty sure. I inform the AC that he has the wrong number, and I hang up the phone. A moment later I realized my error. That is when my highly truant inner child spoke to me, "Why didn't you tell them Scarlet was sick, had mono or something. You could of saved that truant girl. Her truancy could of went unpunished for months with your help. You bastard!"

That is when I realized that I have lost something, something important. I grew up and left that truant little boy behind, and with him the days of wandering around the mall trying to steal canned poop from the novelty store, bumming quarter for "the bus" and drinking warm quarts of beer down at the sump until school was out and I could go home and watch Thunder Cats. An innocence lost and forfeited to a System Architect.