Microstory 240: Perspective Fifteen

This is an experimental Perspectives microstory. The introduction can be found in Microstory 225. More to follow.

I’m not the brightest tool in the shed. This has made my life real hard. I wasn’t good at sports, and I don’t do crime, so I’m stuck feeling like a loser, and money is hard to come by. Unlike the jocks, I’m not dumb just because I’m too busy with other things. I’m legit not smart, and things people say don’t make sense. My parents took me in to get tested, see if I’m tarded, but I’m not. At least that’s not what I gleamed from the meeting. They never said I was tarded, she called me borderline intellectual functioning. And what that means is that I don’t understand what people say very well, and sometimes I say things multiple times because I can’t remember if I said it before. But then after saying it again, I’ll remember that I said it before, and I’ll be upset with myself about it, and then I’ll start to stammer and ramble because I’m just trying to figure out how to finish my thought without sounding like I don’t know what I’m talking about. And that’s funny because the stammering and the rambling end up making me sound like I don’t know what I’m talking about. It’s hard to explain to people what my thing is, because the thing is that when they think of people with mental disabilities, they think of someone, like, drooling over themselves and, ya know, like, swinging their arms around and stuff. That’s not what it is. That’s not me. That’s not what I do. Like I said, I’m not tarded. I just have trouble learning and remembering things. I want people to know that I do have a job and they gave me the job after I talked to people at this special center, but I got the job. I did get the job, and I earned it, and I’m very good at it. I actually found out about it from this kid I went to high school with. He was always really helpful and patient with me. His girlfriend had a kid when they were still in high school. He’s had a really hard life, and I feel really bad about it because I boned his girlfriend when we were in high school, and I never told him about it. Nobody else knows because she died later on and I don’t think she told anyone about it. I feel bad about it because he got me this job at this small business that sells custom clothes and other stuff. I get to fold the clothes and put the things we sell in boxes for customers around the world. The guy’s son sometimes sits in with us and he reads his school books to me because I don’t like to read myself and I’m not good at it. We’re a lot alike. We both like video games and he actually looks a lot like me. I’ve just walked into the diner where the other place his father works. He’s there working on his homework. I’m going to see if he wants to talk, though.