The Admissions Office

I was dropped off in downtown Wickenburg at an official looking admissions office, several miles away from the Ranch proper.  A woman whom I would never see again ushered me into a small office where I was visited briefly by a high level administrator/psychologist (Sam, I think) whom my parents had persuaded to speak with me.  Although I had every intention of asking normal, straight-forward, intelligent questions that would convince him that I certainly was not suited for such a crazy, cult-like treatment facility, instead I started babbling on about all my greatest fears in such a way that probably left him convinced that I couldn’t get to the Ranch fast enough.  I asked him if I would be the biggest girl there.  I asked him if I was “sick” enough for such a high level of care.  Keep in mind, I had just left the hospital day before.  I asked him if the Ranch was going to make me fat.  In essence, I asked him every question that every deranged girl with an eating disorder had asked him before.  I know now what I was really asking him was, “Can you please give me a reason to turn around and go home?”  Of course, no wise-minded business man would give his client a reason no t to pay him.   Furthermore, my crazed, fear-driven, completely predictable line of questioning would have made it professionally irresponsible for him to do anything but get my ass signed up as soon as possible.

Naturally, Sam attempted to respectfully reassure me that Remuda Ranch was a good match for me (not that I was convinced) without making me feel like he had my number.  Then the woman who had greeted me initially and who was, for some reason, still in the room, placed what seemed to be a hundred-page document in front of me and asked me to sign.  I realized, then, that these people had duped me.  I had fallen into their trap.  I was exactly where they wanted me.  They weren’t even going to take me to the Ranch until I signed 45 days of my life away.  Well, sort of.  I could leave any time I wanted to, but they weren’t going to make it easy for me to do so.  Because I wanted to send the message that I was a clear-headed intelligent adult, I insisted on reading all the paperwork before I signed.  I have no idea what the paperwork said, but I pretended I knew, and they probably knew I was pretending.