I have a fable that is obviously too late for Aesop’s collection of same.  It is unlikely to make its way into any later anthology. I might as well tell you about a tiny town whose sole virtue that it was on an interstate road that took a lot of people from various parts of California into Las Vegas, that famous refuge for people who are too sober and trying to get rid of excess money, sometimes while getting either married or divorced. Actually Littletown (we will call it that to avoid embarrassment to all two or three law abiding citizens). Had just one more virtue. Their county hired me as a consultant.  I did last in that job for a while, even though it covered three different small clinics, each of which needed me just a day or two a week. Since every morning when I woke up, I had to have my husband remind me not only what day of the week it was, but what city and clinic I was supposed to be at. The clinic buildings looked different from one another on the outside, a fact which didn’t help me very much because I ended up working on the inside and usually ate lunch at my desk. The patients in all three clinics were different from those that I had seen prior to that time in my career, for I had not done more than sporadic work with addicts, and there were a fair amount of people on crystal meth.  I practiced “from the book” and did the best I could (I always do) and helped some people somewhat, to get treatment and put their lives together.  But it was in Littletown, where the stores on Main Street were empty and the only local culture was the yogurt shelf at the (chain) supermarket, that I really learned about crystal meth for the first time. Read more on Once Upon A Time There Was An Explosion…