I am not the cool person you may have thought me to be. In fact, I used to be a dork. Even today, some of my coolness is a put-on. If with these two sentences I have ruined everything you believed in and hoped for, I apologize. But I had to get it off my chest.
When I was three, I was diagnosed with astigmatism. This means, I think, that my eyes were shaped wrong. (Please remember that I did say I am cooler now than when I was shitting myself. But not much.) So I had to get glasses. That's dorky enough, of course. But these glasses were HUGE. Also red. I wore them until I was nine, when my eyes got better. My mom swears up and down that she thought big glasses would seem less dorky, but then, my mom used to call my old dog, Paddy, by my name. So I wouldn't necessarily go by her.
Also, I used to have a moptop. I'm sure that this was absurdly cute for the adults around me, and I know that girls today think that this is adorable. But at the time, I had little concern for this, and I would go so far as to say that I was probably one of the only suicidal three year olds in Baltimore.
Until I was 10, I was obsessed with Michael Jackson. This included my solemn belief that I was talented. As talented as, say, the King of Pop. My friends know what a ridiculous notion this is. For those of you who don't know me: imagine a tone-deaf eight-year-old Jewish kid with huge red glasses and a moptop and no sense of rhythm trying to Moonwalk and sing the words to "Beat It."
Also a speech impediment. Yup, as if I wasn't cursed enough, I also had a speech impediment. As a little kid, I couldn't say some stuff right, namely "th," "l" and "r." This was a real problem. My full name is Alex Ritter Koppelman. It really sucks to be a little kid who can't correctly pronounce a single word in his own name. Plus, I used to go to the pool and go swimming a lot, and I liked playing "Shark" with the older kids. They always made me the Shark, because when I'd call it, I'd actually say, "Shawk," and they could laugh and make me say it again. Assholes.
When I was in 5th grade, I played Dungeons and Dragons. And you know, that's pretty much all I want to say about that little phase of my life.
In 5th grade, I also participated in the school talent show, doing impressions. One of them was Ross Perot. I now know that I am not good at impressions. At the time, I was a retard. The one consolation was that my grade's hot girl told me I was funny. I think she was just being nice.
I can't believe I just admitted that,
-Alex
