The Perfect Life #21 by Dr. Perfect

When the Caterpillar Calls Your Child

Dear Dr. Perfect,

My wife wants to drop acid with our son for his ninth birthday. I have suggested mushrooms instead. How can we compromise to do what’s best for our child?

Sincerely,
Lost

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Dear Lost,

Do you want to experience a hallucinogen seemingly beyond your control, with no real concept of time or end in sight? Or would you prefer an earthy, emotionally-intense expansion beyond existential horizons? Only your nine-year-old knows for sure.

Whether it’s acid or shrooms, once you’ve transcended cosmic possibilities, things may never be the same. I can’t very well put this into a PowerPoint presentation, but there are certain rules to recreational drug use, regardless of one’s free-spirited nature.

First, know your dealer. Will the acid be laced with more synthetic rat poison than usual, or will you get completely burned with harmless newspaper clippings? Will the mushroom caps be the poisonous kind, or will they have no effect whatsoever? Do you have enough Dr. Pepper or Mountain Dew on hand, and have you selected the right Sri-Lankan psychedelic rock?

You and your wife can reach a fair compromise by putting your son first. A birthday is a very important time for a child.

Have you considered mescaline? I’m only kidding.

A few mushrooms on junior’s birthday pizza will have him experiencing Cloud 9 in no time. If your wife opposes, ask her if she would rather have him babbling incoherently all night in the throes of an acid trip, seeing ants on the floor and three-headed monsters coming out of the microwave like some surrealist’s wet dream.

My first and only LSD experience occurred in San Francisco. I was sixteen and out of my mind. They found me hanging naked off the Golden Gate Bridge, screaming about Ray Davies and Chairman Mao. Mushrooms are usually more manageable. You can even find them yourself by sifting through cow dung. Roaming the countryside through cow pastures could also be the perfect father/son bonding experience.

I’m more partial to mushrooms due to my own grandmother’s insistence on spiking the beef stew we ate during my brief stint at her commune. She was wrong to do it, but I did develop an appreciation for Jefferson Starship I would have never gained otherwise.

You and your wife could be loony hippies like my grand-mère or general scumbags all around.

My columns are Judgment-Free Zones.

If you really want to make his birthday memorable, take him out for some ice cream and maybe the strip club. Leave the psychedelics for when he’s old enough to become a disaffected youth. We all get there eventually, and by then, it’s showtime.

Dr. Perfect has slung advice across the globe for the last two decades due to his dedication to the uplift of the human condition.