I was sitting and talking with presidential hopeful, Michael Dukakis. I was surprised because I liked him a lot. It seemed that he also liked me and that he was thinking of hiring me to work for him. I began telling him about what I had been doing since law school and I finally said, "That's only a part of my life because I'm 35 years old. I had a former life."

He didn't press me, but obviously he wanted to know what I had done before law school. I wanted to be honest with him, but I wondered whether I should tell him about the hallucinogenic drugs I used to take. I thought back on the drugs I had taken during my teenage years and how the drugs had made my outlook on life rather hazy. I thought the drugs had caused me to lose much of my focus. I wondered if I should be completely honest with him. I figured the truth was that I had probably taken hallucinogens about 50 times and that the last time I had taken any, I had been about 20 years old. But then I thought, "No, that's not really true, because I took some of that Ecstasy just a couple of years ago, and that was an hallucinogen."

Perhaps I shouldn't tell him about having used any hallucinogenic drugs and should only tell him about having smoked marijuana. I could tell him I had quit smoking when I had been 20 years old. That would sound good. I said, "I could probably give you a very honest encapsulated description of my life in about 10 minutes."

I then began, "My life has not been one of achievement," emphasizing the word "achievement."

As I talked, the subject of drugs did arise, and Dukakis said something about his needing a man to run the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration. I thought I knew just the man for him, a man I had recently read about in an article in Time magazine. I pulled out an issue of Time which just happened to be lying there. On the front of the magazine was a picture of Dukakis standing beside a desk in front of an orange background.

As I leafed through the magazine looking for the man's name, I noticed an interview of Dukakis in the magazine. I thought the man's name might appear in Dukakis's interview, but Dukakis said he didn't remember mentioning the name of anyone like that in the interview.

I kept looking, but I realized I probably wasn't going to be able to find the name right now. But at least I figured that Dukakis could see I was looking hard for the name and that I would probably be a hard worker if I were working for him.