Tales of a High-Functioning Nerd

How old are we when we first begin separating into cliques? High School seems to be the apex of this particular paradigm--jock, prep, goth, punk, nerd... the whole Breakfast Club thing--but it must start sooner than that. I can remember junior high being pretty clique-oriented, too. In seventh and eighth grade recess, most of the boys would usually gather to play touch football. I tried to join them once, but after making what I presume was a terrible mistake on the field, I was told by a kid fully a foot shorter than me that "if you can't play with the big dogs, stay on the porch!" I assume he read that off of a t-shirt at some point and it really stuck with him. Anyway, after that I went back to my usual recess activity: "hanging out." I was obviously not a jock. As an adult, it's hard to look at little kids of eight or nine and think of them in terms of social status within their peer group, but I can remember that even then, there's a kind of hier...

The morning of my eleventh birthday, I woke up to my dog Scarlett softly growling. Scarlett was a sweet little Irish setter mix. Stupidest dog I ever owned, but sweet and loyal. She slept on the floor in my room, guarding me from all the dangers the suburbs have to offer: squirrels, laughing children, more squirrels. I had never heard her growl in the night, though, and yet here she was: letting loose a constant, low, warning growl. Frightened, I opened my eyes only a little. Silhouetted against the dim, early-morning light was a man. He was standing there, over my bed, watching me sleep. Terrified, I kept myself still, pretending to be asleep so as not to alert the intruder. As my sleepiness faded a little, I began to reason: why would someone break in to my room just to watch me sleep? I must be imagining things, I reasoned. It’s probably just a trick of the light! I cracked my eyes open just enough- nope! It was a man, alright! And not my father—this man was roughly the same heig...