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Today I was writing out a story, just to keep the writing muscle in shape. I had a picture in my head of a guidance counselor's office, the kind that's plastered with posters of cats with motivational captions. Suddenly a young man entered the room without knocking. He slouched in a chair, and brooded silently while a middle-aged man hurled empty proverbs at him. “A rolling stone gathers no moss,” says the divorced BMW-lessee, his sage advice pitched with the perfect degree of artificial compassion. Slightly discouraged that his words seemed to bounce straight off the reticent boy, the counselor pressed his fat fingers together and asked him why, given his talents, was he falling behind in his schoolwork?
The young man tried to ignore this question, but finally broke the suffocating silence by muttering that he just didn't care anymore. The guidance counselor attacked the problem like a vulture spotting a hunk of roadkill. Problems at home? Ugly divorce? Is someone molesting you, son? The counselor went though the gamut of teen angst, but nothing seemed to strike home. Stumped, the guidance counselor scheduled a conference with the boy's parents. As he dismissed the boy, he shook his head and said, “I just can't see why you would let your genius go to waste.”
I knew immediately that I am that boy.