This Guy

Forty some years of remaining expressionless has helped keep that youthful look within reach. Those worry lines are starting to show up though. And the grey hair is somewhat of a giveaway.
No, I'm not going bald, my forehead's always been this big.
My nosehairs grow incredibly fast.

I mentioned in a previous post that the most embarrassing thing I could think of about myself was the tattoo on my forearm. But I'm owning that. Besides, I thought of something possibly worse.

I was a bed-wetter. Looking back on it now, it would be nice to be able to blame it on the undiagnosed epilepsy. But I'm pretty sure I know better. I don't know exactly why it happened, but it made sleepovers very difficult. 

When I was probably 11 years old I regularly slept on a damp, urine-soaked mattress that I didn't even change the sheets on. I didn't take showers in the morning. I just went to school smelling like pee. I didn't know it, but some of the other kids had a nickname for me. 

My brother called me a scum, and didn't seem to have the patience to help me deal with my issues in a kind way, not that it was his job to. My dad left for work before I left for school, and my mom just plain left. When I got kicked out of private school (sorry Jonas) I started going to a public school a couple of cities away. Finally going to a different school than my older brother (the private school's enrollment was so low, we averaged about 6 kids per year in a class that included 2 grades so he and I were in the same CLASS for three years) I was able to flex my storytelling a little. There was a girl I liked based on seeing her around. I shouldn't use her name, but it was Kim Gardner. I didn't know Kim, I probably never had a conversation with her. But since my brother and his friends didn't see me all day because I was all the way up in Altadena, I fibbed a little to make myself seem cooler (since I totally wasn't at all) and I told them that Kim was my girlfriend. Well, for some reason one day they didn't have school and I did, and they took the bus up there with me. When we got there, of course they went and found Kim and told her what I had said. Here's where I have to say "thanks guys" because Kim finally came up and talked to me. It's also when I found out about the nickname the other kids had for me. 

All I remember was an angry, pretty girl yelling at me, "I would never go with you, Piss Boy!"

POST SCRIPT

I don't blame her for being mad. I was gross and I lied and the lie involved her and sixth grade is a time in our lives where our reputation is just forming and image means so much. I was wrong. I deserved to be humiliated. And she wasn't wrong about the "piss boy" thing either. It's not like she was making stuff up just to be hurtful. Also, it's not a typo that it says "I would never go with you." I didn't miss typing the word "out" in there. That's the way they said it back then. "Would you go with me?" So then they would go. I never "goed" with anyone. Went with anyone. I didn't have a girlfriend. I think the closest I ever got was with Amy Czerwinski. We used to hang out. We were friends. We went to each other's houses and all. But we never had a "relationship." We never kissed or anything. I mean, we were like 12. She was nice to me, though, and I always appreciated that. I do remember that she found me again years later, when we were proper teenagers, and she kind of hinted that she might be "interested" in me, but I wasn't feeling it by then. I don't know. There's a whole other story there.

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