I didn't know he had a circulation problem, and he had big hips, so I thought he kept his gun in his pocket.
(I was a fifth grader, plus I suck.)
He kind of laughed and just explained to me about the circulation problem.
Another time, we were using our DARE books and learning about stress and its relation to drugs and everything.
On a list of things that cause pressure in a person's life, we had to check off what we experienced. The scale was from 1-12, and I got an eleven.
Anyway, the last few days of DARE was preparation for the DARE graduation. Our assignment was to write some skits, and then Sergeant Stevens would pick one to present at the graduation in front of an auditorium full of parents.
Me, Eli, and a couple of other kids wrote this little skit, I forget exactly how it went. The whole premise was that Eli was the main character, and some kids tried to get him to do drugs. Every so often, Eli would have an aside with the audience, and explain the situation.
Our skit got picked to be presented, of course.
So, on graduation day, we all got prepared. My cue was quite simple. When Eli said the following line, I would walk out on stage:
"I was getting kind of nervous, but that's when Sergeant Stevens showed up!"
After I walked on stage, I had to give the audience a few moments to get over the awesomeness of my stage presence. Wait, no, I had to give them a few moments to stop laughing. The entire audience started cracking up. I mean, I guess it was kind of funny, a midget, porky, fifth grader portraying Sergeant Stevens.
My lines were to tell the kids that were trying to get Eli to do drugs to "get out of here," or something, but I kind of just mumbled them so no one could hear them. They probably came out something like "Nbu bum nu bb bnmmu b bjbbg balgablsd bnbum."
That's okay, anyway. Half of the kids that "graduated" from DARE are avid drug users now.