Insider ego trading...

I am not what you call an overly confident individual.

As one who typically eschews the conventionally sought after self-esteem mandate for a more masochistic approach to life rooted in self-doubt, self-deprecation, and self-effacement, the idea of a positive self-image is one that on the whole, is wholly foreign to me.

I say all that not to illicit sympathy or reassurance, but to give you a sound basis and frame of reference for what I am about to say...

I am much, much, much, much, much more stable and well adjusted now than I ever was as a kid.

Yes, I know, all kids are emotionally, shall we say, unstable? But trust me, at times I was quite the special case... I didn’t grasp the way the “world” worked back then... I never really understood what it would take to fit in with most of my peers... or if I did understand it, it certainly didn’t make enough sense to me for me to justify playing along (I equate this as the reason I’d be positively lousy as a salesman).

Now, this lack of understanding probably did more to fuel what would eventually become my somewhat creative personality than just about anything else, so today I am grateful and appreciative of my somewhat altered perspective, but at the time... well, let’s just say I didn't appreciate that it solidified my fate... or that any and all desperate attempts to BE cool (of which I made many) basically did nothing but reaffirm the fact that I never WOULD be cool.

As a child, you really don’t appreciate the fact that your burgeoning addiction to television and books will serve as a sound pop culture basis for dominating the “pink” category in future trivial pursuit games... when the “cool” kids are talking about clothing labels and fancy cars, your affinity for Stephen King seems more like a personality defect than an attribute.

Anyway, there IS an actual reason why I’m giving you all this setup...

You see, at the age of 11, I became the subject of a bizarre sociological experiment... one that utterly confused and degraded me, while simultaneously causing me to become a potential source of income for any lucky soul who happened to be riding my bus to school.

But first, a little background...

When I got to sixth grade, I was at a crossroads. I was just starting to develop my own impressions of things... but I hadn’t really developed an identity yet. I had discovered that girls seemed to possess the potential to be entertaining in ways that boys couldn’t, but I had yet to evolve into the suave metrosexual lady-killer that types before you now...

In short, I knew I should be starting to make things happen for myself, but I had absolutely no clue what those things should be... or how to make them happen. Most of my peers however, seemed to have everything under control (at least that’s what I thought at the time).

And they did it all the same way...

They looked the same.

They dressed the same.

They acted the same.

And I just didn’t get it.

Now... I grew up in a fairly nice neighborhood and went to one of the area’s nicer public elementary schools, so you can probably imagine what these guys were like...

Affluence had truly run amok in my community, and this crew fit the archetype to a “T”: preppy, pretty, and self-assured.

Basically, they were the Johnny Lawrences to my Daniel LaRusso.

Only I didn’t know karate...

Or date Elisabeth Shue...

Or have a little Asian man to teach me how to prune and catch flies with chopsticks.

Heck, I never even painted a fence.

But I digress...

Ok, so that's the setup... let's move on and add to the picture my older brother. 3 years my senior, and to me, an enigma. I had no clue what made him tick, but in fulfillment of the traditional “little brother” job description, I had dutifully copied his every move from the time I could walk... hey, I was the little brother... that was what you did.

As I was beginning Junior High, he was starting to make his way through High School, and I don’t know if he hadn’t seen the other kids, or if he didn’t get the memo, or if things were different once you had actually started going through puberty, but he had apparently made a conscious decision to adopt a different approach to... well, to just about everything.

Whereas the “cool” kids I was surrounded by on a daily basis were dressing in Polo shirts and listening to Wham!, he was donning concert t-shirts and suede fringe jackets, growing his hair, and buying cassettes by bands with names like Iron Maiden, Ratt and Motley Crue.

This put me in quite the precarious position.

More than anything else at the time, I wanted people to like me (or at the very least, ignore me)... I’m a people pleaser after all, and the last thing I wanted was to be ridiculed...

This simple request soon became the Holy Grail to my 11th year of life.

At first, I tried to fit in with the cool kids.

I got a few Izod shirts (not quite as good as Polo, but hopefully still acceptable enough to get through the school day unscathed) and layered them appropriately... green with yellow... red with blue... etc... and much to my amazement it appeared to work. Kids that had previously mocked and teased me for wearing what I thought were perfectly acceptable t-shirts and jeans now generally left me alone... on occasion, they even spoke to me like I was human.

Then I came home from school... where my brother caught a glimpse of me.

To say that he was less than pleased with my particular choice of wardrobe would be an underestimation on par with saying that Rosie O’Donnell likes her some Ho Hos.

He let loose a string of insults like I had never heard before, working up into quite the fervor, and going so far as to bring my Mother into the situation so he could explain to her in great detail the dangers in my becoming a “Prep.”

The next day I went back to wearing a t-shirt and jeans...

You see where this is going?

Yes, the kids at school (now having seen that I actually owned clothing they considered passable) were relentless... I got off the bus at the end of the day feeling like someone who had gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson (even though I wouldn’t have any clue who he was for another 2 years)

So the next day it was back to the collar shirts...

And back to the brotherly abuse.

And that was how it went.

Back and forth and back and forth.

Some days I wore Izod... Some days I didn’t. After a while, it got so I was picking my clothes in the morning based on who I wanted to make fun of me less...

hmmm... should I go with the obnoxious preppy rich rids, or the angst ridden older brother?

It was much fun, let me tell you...

Then, something even more strange started happening.

As I would get on the bus in the morning, about half of the “cool” kids would break into spontaneous applause, while the other half would immediately appear angered with me. Who was happy and who was mad seemed to vary by the day, but without fail, as I stepped foot up the stairs and passed the yellow line, I would be greeted by both cheers and boos. For a while I almost enjoyed it... I mean, at least SOMEONE seemed pleased with whatever I was doing...

And then the other shoe started its slow decline...

One day, as the bell was getting ready to ring at the end of the day, one of the “cool” kids pulled me aside and asked what I planned on wearing the next day. When I told him I didn’t know, he asked if I could please try to wear a t-shirt. I was perplexed to say the least, but being the schmuck that I was (and just being happy that he was showing an interest) I gleefully complied. The next day, the scenario repeated itself.

As it did the next day...

And the next.

And the next.

I’ll spare you the drama in the details of what progressed next, but remember how I mentioned earlier that I became a “potential source of income for any lucky soul who happened to be riding my bus to school”?

Yeah, well it turns out that people had begun wagering on what I would wear to school. It was a big joke that the entire bus was in on, and only after I informed some of the other kids that I was tipping off one of their compatriots on my potential wardrobe choices did it stop (inexplicably, they weren’t mad with the kid who swindled them out of their money... they were however quite mad with me for telling him what I might wear).

Yup, that's it... I layed out that big whole rambling scenerio just so I could put into context a story from my childhood that i'm only going to devote one paragraph to explaining.

Hey, it's my blog... I can do things like that.

But ya know, it’s funny how kids are sometimes...

Heck, it’s funny how adults are sometimes...

And sometimes, there doesn’t seem to be all that much difference between the two.

I don’t really know why I decided to relate this little adolescent anecdote today. It’s not a particularly painful memory or one that bothers me or anything.

And to tell the truth, I think it conjures up a pretty funny mental image.

Me, the conquering hero, striding onto the bus to cheers and boos of my adoring constituency.

That’s funny stuff!

But maybe it's only funny because now I have the hindsight of knowing that I’ve (mostly) gotten over those old insecurities...

And I know that I’m much, much, much, much, much more stable and well adjusted now than I ever was as a kid...

And of course, I also know damn well that if we ever played trivial pursuit, I would totally kick those guys’ asses in the “pink” category.