flashback

[Mung]

while browsing thru here,I just had this horrible flashback of standing in line with phasers in each hand and staring into the back of the closest kids head, while waiting
obediently for our holy masters to dismiss us.
Ugh. Executive rap- motivating with your legs crossed on the floor (how degrading).
If I had known that 45 days of copout led to termination, I would've tried to survive by eating leaves, worms, and spiders in the woods, instead of trying to return home.

[Carmel]

I copped out and lived on the streets for 31 days exactly before I called home.  We were told it was 30 days.

Intersting doing that in a city you dont know.  I sure learned a lot.

It was worth it, because i wasnt going back there.

[EarthMother]

Ah, yes. Motivating "indian style". My knees are still screwed up from that. I wish they had told us that copping out for a certain number of days would lead to termination. I would have taken off for sure. They probably figured that if we knew that, all their prisoners would escape.

[ This Message was edited by: EarthMother on 2002-05-30 19:59 ]

[Cleopatra2U]

I wish someone had told me that too!  I was on the streets for about a week the first time I copped out.  I don't know if I would've stayed out longer if I had known though -- I really didn't think my folks would put me back in Straight after leaving.  But they did.

Mindi

[groovy1634]

[Sunshinegirl0420]

i would've put more effort too. i was gone for a weekend, although i seem to remember one girl i would swear was gone longer than 30 - 45 and brought back, yet everyday was forever. glad i am out of my srtatghtjacket!!
have a nice long weekend every one.  lets shut these things  off?!?!?!!!!

[Antigen]

I was gone for well over a month and wound up back in. I wasn't having a horrible time. I just decided to go visit my sister, thinking she probably wouldn't turn me in. Last time I'd seen her, we were smoking a joint together with our brother and a couple of her friends on a rented sunfish on Mathuhz Vinyid. Surely, she wouldn't rat me out? But she did, the self serving witch!

Anyway, I wish I'd have taken off from there as soon as I knew I was busted instead of getting talked into going back to Florida. Oh well, ya' live and learn.

[ladyjerrico]

It crossed my mind about copping out, however, I'm not a fast runner, but I would try to make a plan in my mind during rap sessions or school time.
I couldn't think of a way to leave without being tackled down on the ground and told to eat the carpeting (that happened when I tried leaving during my intake) it took 5 higher phase guys and one staff member to pin me to the ground. I was physically strong, and still am a bit.
I was also wondering how to survive out there with no money and not look like a begger off the street.
I decided to stay until I turned 18 (7 months of hell) and sign myself out. I couldn't bare the fact that they tried to bribe me putting me automatically on 3rd phase to go to school.. I think not.

[Antigen]

I just hitchhiked with truckers. Money was scarece, but most truckers will give a kid a meal when they stop for a bite. And there's such a thing as a truck nigger, which is one small but important step above lot lizard. I washed laundry, took trucks through the truck wash, cleaned the interiors, filled in logs, rolled joints, fetched beers and dispensed pills for drivers and their passengers, read maps and generally operated as a do girl.

[ladyjerrico]

3 hours of walking and still ended up back in Straight, ugh. We didn't have much around the Straight we were at unless you wanted to walk a few miles, but there was a main busy road right outside of our building, so basically if you ran, it would be like playing Frogger and not get hit by a car, so I never attempted it from the building, although I had thoughts of it from a few host homes because I knew the area, I just didn't tell anyone about it and I certainly didn't want staff to find out

[bettypills]

it's so funny how inept at running away I was... I was only 15, a suburban new-wave kid fer chrissakes, when I left from school on (my first) 3rd phase! I had no idea where to go or what to do, I didn't know ANYBODY anywhere else. I went to my friend's house, the one with the 'cool' parents, maybe 5 miles from home. Her parents let her smoke pot and let all of her friends hang out there & party. Even THEY made me leave when apprised of the 'situation'. What was a sheltered little girl to do? I could not conceive of actually going far away! Of course I called my mom & she tricked me into coming home, saying "I'll pull you from Straight, just come home!
3 hours later, they were motivating at me.
The real irony though, is that after I finally 7-stepped, after all that acting and pretending and blah blah blah, 3 years after that meek-ass 'cop-out', I found myself a squatter in San Francisco, by choice, by a conscious choice of fuck you, society! Yeah, dumpster diving and sleeping in abandoned buildings 2000 miles from Cinci, but
oh so joyful to be free!

[ladyjerrico]

that has to be a bad scenario even if you wern't in Straight. That is one thing that I pondered myself "if i was to "run" and acutually escape, what would I eat, wear, drink? I have no money, how would I make money? By finding pop bottles on the street" Maybe. But Plymouth is such a clean city, if people litter, they have someone to clean it up.
My fiance used to "dumpster dive" just to find pop bottles when I first met him.. you gotta train these men I tell ya.. he hasn't done that in 3 years.. lol.

[a mc]

i managed to cop out and stay gone for 11 days before the police found me. I was going for a minimum of 6 months in my mind. but my favorite stories are the failed cops outs. Once i made a run for it in the night. out the phazer door with the alarm going. I had placed some cloths outside my bag in the hallway to just grab and run. Unfortunately I didn't realize that they locked the bags and cloths up at night at the host home. so instead I ended up with nothing. And that was what I had on when I got outside. Nothing. Just some tighty whiteys. I was somewhere in VA. don't know where. and need to get to NC. I don't know about you guys, but I not really sure I would want a ride from the person who would actually pick up a 15 yr old who is on the street only in tighty whities.

[ This Message was edited by: silentis on 2002-09-24 07:38 ]

[kosmonaut]

After copping out I was "on the run" for about 3 weeks.  A friend of mine in the program copped out at the same time and we ended up being on the lam together.  We stayed at friend's houses, or slept in the woods or in half-finished construction projects.  I'm ashamed to say we ended up stealing to support ourselves.  We even took a truck and ended up driving down to Florida for a while.  At the time I was so confused I really didn't care what happened as long as I didn't have to go back to Straight.  

After we were finally caught I ended up in juvenile detention for about 4 months and was charged with grand theft auto, credit card fraud, burglary, and shoplifting among other things.  

Anyway it all makes for an entertaining story.

[ladyjerrico]

Not a bad sentence for all of that, 4 months in juvinile is nothing. It's a good thing that they didn't sentance you as an adult, some courts in Michigan now are actually trying to push that law to send juviniles as adults and so they end up in jail for a long time.