Even though I was afraid to buy lunchmeat when my mom would send me to the corner deli, I wasn't a shy kid. It was really just carnivorous adults with bloody aprons that I was afraid of -- until I changed schools and learned that fifth graders are the really scary ones. Before that, I was pretty popular. Believe you me, everyone wanted to play hopscotch and "whisper down the lane" with me. But at my new school, I stood out like a hobo at a country club. Changing schools was a horrendously bad move. To my mother's chagrin, the curriculum at Bridesburg Elementary wasn't nearly as advanced as the lessons at St. John Cantius, my old school. Now I didn't mind waiting for the other kids to catch up -- more coloring time for me. But I did mind being branded "Brainy," "Four-eyes" and "Egg-head" by Michelle and Tammy. Since then my "ultra brainy-ness" has always caused me to stand out. In high school, I tried donning plaid shirts and 10-ton, heavy as hell, combat boots to fit in with the grungy kids. I tried wearing bandanas and short-shorts to fit in with my school's hoochie population, but that attire never quite worked with my glasses. It seemed like I would never get the giant "E," for egg-head, off my chest. So gradually I started rolling my eyes whenever someone popular, like the homecoming queen, said "like" too many times in class: "So, like, I just don't get why, like Hamlet has to be um, like so mad crazy." I decided that if they were too cool for me, then I was too smart for them. And surprisingly, this logic worked most of the time, except when people like Jodi the cheerleader beat me out in class rank. Then one day maybe it was my failure to tell a dactyl from a trochee in English 40 or an epiphany I had while standing in line at Starbucks, but it occurred to me that I'm just not brilliant enough to be anti-social. In fact, even amazingly talented people like Picasso and Rainman were wise enough to network. After all, Rainman got to count cards in Vegas and Picasso developed Cubism with Braque. To say it plainly, where would we be if Watson never hobnobbed with Crick? Now I'm not some kind of genius painter or idiot savant, but maybe if I'm good at nothing else in life, perhaps I can be good at people. To tell the truth, making fun of stuttering, muscle-head jocks and debutantes is getting boring and I need to grow up. It's time to leave the fortification of the geek squad and start giving cool people a chance. Because along the way some jocks, cheerleaders and punks actually surprised me -- it's a shame Michelle and Tammy never did. They were just some straight-up ten year-old biz-snatches.

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