Don't get married in Kansas... there are tornadoes there!

This is a story from my internship 2 years ago. Sometimes I still think back on this experience and laugh/cry for the poor kid.

Some people mock the traditional "testing" role of the school psychologist and claim that it is boring. I'll be honest, I definitely prefer the more dynamic role an RtI school psych plays in a school; however, it is days like these that really make me love what I do.

This morning I gave a cognitive assessment to one WIERD kid. I had heard stories about this kids oddities and was excited to finally meet him. I have never seen a little kid's hand move as fast as his did when he was constructing block designs - holy cow, it was like lightning. And the problem was that he kept moving the blocks around so fast that he couldn't keep track of the designs he was making. So that was funny. Then we got to the verbal comprehension part of the test. He kept giving my vague answers and I would ask him to tell me more about what he was talking about. Here are several of his remarks... "Geez, I don't know anything about that." "I don't know EVERYTHING, nobody knows EVERYTHING so stop asking me all these questions. Do you understand? I'm right, nobody knows EVERYTHING" "I already told you what I know about that and its nothing! I know nothing!"... Needless-to-say, this kid got pretty frustrated with me because I kept trying to get him to be more specific. It ended up with him yelling at me, "I ALREADY TOLD WHAT ______ IS! WEREN'T YOU LISTENING TO ME?" When I explained that he hadn't actually answered my question and tried to calm him down, the craziness began. He began muttering to himself softly about how he was right and how I didn't know what I was talking about, and that I just needed to wait for him to get out of there to go get a dictionary to prove that he was right. He kept talking to himself for about 3 minutes until I started getting really freaked out and decided to continue with the next subtest. He was having a full blown conversation with himself about me, right in front of me. It kind of reminded me of the movie A Beautiful Mind -- CREEPY! The really scary thing is that he curled himself into a ball and his entire countenance morphed. It reminded me of Gollum, from Lord of the Rings.

Later during that testing session, this 8 year old student drilled me on my current marital status -- here's how that conversation played out:

S: "Are you married?"

Me: "No, I'm not married."

S: "Oh. You must be divorced, aren't you?"

Me: "I'm not divorced. I've never been married."

S: (with an expression of disbelief on his face) "But aren't you 18?"

Me: "Yep. I'm even older than 18."

S: (pauses to think for a few seconds) "Well, do you at least date?"

Me: (laughing) "Yes, I go out on dates."

S: (he grabs his own cheeks) "Good! I want to come to your wedding!"

Me: (laughing) "Ok. I'll let you know when I'm planning on getting married."

S: "I think you should get married at San Fransisco or St. Louis under the Arch."

Me: "Under the Arch, huh? Why?"

S: "Well, just tell me where you are going to go and I'll come! But it needs to be in Missouri. Don't get married close to Kansas."

Me: "Why can't I get married in Kansas?"

S: "There are tornadoes in Kansas and I'm scared of tornadoes."

Me: "Ok, I'll try to stay away from Kansas."

S: "But if you do decide to get married in Kansas, check the weather before. You might have to cancel your wedding and do it a different weekend."

At this point I was laughing pretty hard and trying to contain myself. The kid was being dead serious, so I had to change the subject and finish the test. What a great testing day!