The Treatment Program of Absurdity: 1

Shoplifting

In order to become more involved with the students, Winfield Reese had decided to become a house manager – so now the only two overnight staff members were Randy and Kyle - and would end up at the guy’s transition house; Winfield Reese was a tall African American who had a high-and-tight hairstyle. My first major interaction with him as a house manager: I was going as a convict for Halloween, and was about to purchase a fake knife at the nearby Walgreens, but Winfield bumped into me and exclaimed, “Don’t even think about it;” I went and bought the knife anyway. There was a costume party at the girls’ transition house, and I had the knife, thinking nothing bad would happen, but then Winfield turned to me and exclaimed, “Why did you buy the knife?”
Winfield had grown up in Provo, where he excelled at Football and Baseball. Winfield had received a full scholarship to Elon, which was taken away from him, due to a mistake that he made in high school, where he had no choice but to go into the military. After completing two tours, he would attend college at BYU. Winfield went to work at Barton, which is a group home for those with severe autism; Lindin Place, which was a therapeutic school; and his final place of work, before starting at Great Ascendency, was working at a juvenile detention center. Winfield had become tired of working with people like that, and realized that he wanted to work with more deserving people, which is why he came to Great Ascendency.
The privilege of being in transition gave me the ability to go grocery shopping on my own. I, like many students, would use scanners to scan the bar codes on grocery products, where you would then scan the scanner at a barcode at the checkout line, and then pay the owed amount. I had always shoplifted by using the scanners at the checkout line, and would scan one or two things really fast, in order to save up to $30.00 at a time. There were now portable scanners, so I could now steal as much as I wanted. I once stole $30.00, and then one day, I stole $50.00. On one Sunday, when Winfield Reese had taken us all shopping, I, being as complacent as I was, decided to try stealing $400 at a time; and this consisted of a $50 bottle of sparkling lemonade. I succeeded, but I did not know that they audited people, which had happened to George right after I finished at the checkout counter. Winfield had seen my food, and had presumed that I had purchased everything on sale. I had almost gotten away with shoplifting.
When we got back to the house, I admitted to Adam what I had done, in which Adam exclaimed “idiot.” Adam had pointed out how Winfield was going to check everybody’s receipts that evening, in which I realized he was screwed and must confess, since he would realize I had more food than he would’ve seen. I went down to Polly House and saw Tory, in which I told her the truth. Tory was very calm about the whole situation, but was clearly disappointed.
I went back to the house to confess to Winfield what I had done. Winfield would exclaim, “Go to your room;” I thought Winfield was not to angry and Winfield was not choleric, when in fact, Winfield was pissed off; and later on, he would tell me that I’d pissed him off more than any Great Ascendency student had.
I had been given different medical diagnosis throughout my life: Asperger’s when I was 7; ADHD when I was 13; and just natural anger when I was 15. Winfield had felt that all that had happened was I had no disability and just misbehaved, but instead of saying that I needed to be punished more, psychologists decided to give him a label to justify my behavior.
The next day, I was waiting for therapy with John Butler. I had seen Winfield Miott walk into Dr. Butler’s office, and didn’t think much was going to happen, due to how chill John Butler was; but when John walked out of his office, he exclaimed, “WIPE THAT SMILE OF YOUR FACE,” and brought me back to his office. John Butler explained to me not only how lucky I am to not be in jail, but also that Great Ascendency was not going to terminate me in order to avoid me ruining the program’s reputation. When Winfield told me about about the idea of spending a year in prison, I had a horrible fear of being raped in prison. Winfield presumed that would happen, and I agreed, due to the fact that I was not too strong, but also very sexy; Winfield and John agreed with the strong part. The punishment was now that I had to always shop with a staff member by his side, like a 4-year-old; the punishment was seized after two-weeks.
I went with the rest of the other students to go play paintball that weekend. I had been playing since he was 13, and was a vivacious player who had all of the gear one could desire. Winfield and I were both crouching behind cover, when a sniper approached Winfield, but I shot the sniper, thus I saved Winfield. Winfield had earned a modest amount of respect for me, which would later grow into a friendship.