For the second grade talent show I had some dinky little simplified Mozart piece to play. I mean really simplified; I am not much of a pianist and never have been despite my dad’s best efforts.

A boy I had a little crush on was playing “Eye of the Tiger” on the piano for the talent show. So much cooler. I was extremely jealous.

So I said to him, “I bet you can’t play MOZART!”

He just gave me a great second-grade “huh?” kind of look. I was immediately mortified and have been ever since.

The problem was that he was dorky. He had naturally curly hair that produced a fifties-looking topknot. He tucked in his t-shirts. He was short and skinny. My brothers mocked him for all these reasons (and I think those were the only reasons). So I ignored him until he went away solely because of my brothers’ opinion of him. My brothers were dorks too for Pete’s sake!

I still feel bad that I treated such a nice guy so badly. It was totally because I was an insecure dork myself, and therefore afraid of associating with other dorks. He wrote the nicest thing in my yearbook even after I treated him so badly.

I wish I could apologize to him, even if it has been almost 20 years now.

My younger brother is also autistic. My family tells a story about when they went to the airport to see me off on my mission (I’ve told this before, but so what). I’d already boarded the plain. The family was watching the plane leave. Nearby was a well dressed businessman reading the newspaper. No one really saw it coming.

My brother (about age 11) walked right up to the gentleman, sat down on his lap, put his hand on his shoulder and declared:

“Let’s kiss!”