Pearls In Wine

My dear Franco-American friend was forced to attend a priggish British boarding school at the young age of eleven. When he took the admissions test, he realized that even though he spoke perfect English, he couldn't read or write it. Though he quickly got over the language barrier, boarding school presented many other menacing surprises: there was the typical hazing rituals by the older boys -- the most notable was called "bogwashing," and you can imagine how that turned out.

One afternoon my friend was in a fanciful mood of understanding dreams and enjoying the sunlight when a strange man approached him, accompanying him on his walk by the river. Eventually the fellow propositioned my friend to "crawl through a hole and go into a place where men went cottaging." My friend kindly declined the offer. He survived his prep school years and is well-equipped for the next time someone tries to stick his head in a toilet or to take him down the rabbit hole, so to speak. No matter how effete, boarding school seems to be a decent preparation for the real world.