The Biggest Nerd I Ever Knew...

And for those smart alecks out there, no, it's not me.

There was this kid I went to junior high with that was the personification of the word "nerd". Let me start by coming clean. I'm sure there were plenty of times I was guilty of tormenting this poor kid. I like to think that, knowing what I know now, I'd be a little more sympathetic, but I was in junior high and junior high kids are fucking cruel. However, he did bring a lot of it on himself.

First of all, he had all the textbook signs and symptoms of a nerd. He wore uncool clothes (probably Garanimals) and shoes. He neither washed nor combed his hair. He walked funny and he sucked at sports. His mom used to drop him off by the bike racks each day right in front of the gathered masses of pre-pubescent vultures ready to give him his daily dose of early morning shit. Looking back, I'm impressed that he had the fortitude not to resort to a Columbine-style rampage.

There were two things he did that elevated him above just your run-of-the-mill nerds. One was that he wrote love letters to a handful of the most popular girls in our class. In them, he described how he had fantasies about them. Big mistake. The notes instantly became public and he had nowhere to run.

The other thing he did that really baffled me was what he did in the gym locker room. At the beginning of the school year, you had to purchase a gym uniform. The guy's uniform included a jockstrap. None of us ever wore it except him. What he would do, in order to never be completely naked, was put the jock on over his underwear and then stretch the legholes of the briefs down around his ankles. It required a lot of coordination and a lot of extra time - enough time that the rest of us noticed and gathered around him in a chorus of taunts. He did this every day.

Given my disdain for bullies, it saddens me that I didn't have the balls to stick up for this kid, or at least give him some tips on how to fly under the radar. I guess I was too nervous that one wrong step and I'd be exposed for the nerd that I was, too. That's how I remember junior high - living in fear. The best bet was to keep a low profile. One moment everything could be fine, but one embarassing fuck-up and you'd be eating lunch by yourself for the rest of the year.

By the way, doing an image search for "jockstrap" is not something I intend to do again any time soon.