Supposed to

By Evan

People don't act the way I want them to. It is becoming a very large problem that I will have to rectify somehow. People need to behave in a predictable manner, but they don't listen and continue to behave erratically.

I had not been having too many problems with this general trend of unpredictability until my family decided to move to Baton Rouge so that my father could work at the Dow Petrochemical Processing Plant. I did not like this change at all. Up until that point, my days had been strictly ordered according to routine. Every morning I got up at precisely 6:48, made sure my polystyrene collection was in order, and came to the breakfast table where I consumed a bowl of Rice Krispies and homogenized two percent fat milk. My mom would then take me to Kindergarten, with my reminding her to stop whenever we saw a stop sign. I would then go over the expected course material and generally ignore the other students whenever possible. They understood that I did not particularly wish to interact or play with them, unless I had something I felt important to tell them, and left me alone.

Once we had moved, I was stuck in a strange new environment, including a new school for first grade. My first day of class, some one day five hours and thirteen minutes ago, did not go so well. Even the teachers did not seem to understand that everything would move very smoothly if they behaved as they were supposed to. The biggest problems however, were my fellow students. My mother had complained that I had been too "aloof" at my old school and wanted me to try to make some friends. I agreed to make an attempt if she would agree to stop hugging me; I found the contact most unpleasant. Besides, from the way I understand how things are supposed to be, kids my age should have some friends, I didn't like it, but that's just how it had to be. At school before class, I approached what I viewed to be a likely prospect, a dark haired boy approximately 90 cm tall, and began to talk to him.

"Did you know that Styrofoam is a registered trademark of the Dow Chemical Corporation and that what most people call Styrofoam is actually polystyrene? I have a large collection of polystyrene plates, cups and utensils, many of which have bite marks on them in unique places, which I have sorted according to location and number of the bite marks, although admittedly I put many of the bite marks into the polystyrene myself."

At this point I suddenly noticed that the boy was not there. I guessed that he must have had a sudden urgent need to tinkle; otherwise he would not have left my highly interesting lists of facts about polystyrene.

Then the school bell rang, indicating the start of class. I would have to wait before accumulating the necessary amount of friends appropriate to me. I went into the classroom labeled "first grade" and managed to procure a desk at the only position I would be willing to sit in, the front right hand corner. A large fat woman walked into the room and said that her name was Miss Spyridon and that she was our teacher.

"Gee, you're fat," I said.

"WHAT?????" She asked me, a little bit loudly it seemed.

I quickly began to consider that somehow she was unaware of her vast size.

"You're fat, you're very big and round," I said, hoping she would understand this time.

"What is your name?"

"Cecil Nevoir."

"Cecil Nevoir, go to the Principal's office you little smart Alec!"

"My name is Cecil, not Alec, although I do like to think I'm smart."

"Just get going before I lose my patience."

"Why, does the Principal not know that you're fat?"

"Go to the principal and explain to him what you did."

So I went out the door and headed to the Principal's office to tell him that Miss. Spyridon was fat. I got to the door, which had a brass plaque that read, Principal Flynn Russom. I knocked on the door and then entered. Mr. Flynn Russom was roughly 180 centimeters tall with bushy red hair. He was sitting behind his desk writing something. He beckoned me to sit down. I began to stare at the ground as he started talking to me.

"So what's your name and what did you do?"

"My name is Cecil Nevoir, and Miss Spyridon sent me here after I told her she was fat. I guess she wanted me to come here and tell you that she's fat."

"That is very inappropriate behavior Cecil. Look at me when I'm talking to you."

"Why? I know you're there."

"That's it wise guy, I'm calling your parents. You can explain to them why I had to call them within ten minutes of the start of school," he said as he began to flip through the phonebook.

"But I don't know why you're calling them. All I did was say some things that are true."

He stopped looking up Nevoir in the phonebook and stared at me.

"You know what, I will give you a reprieve this time, go see the school counselor and she'll hopefully explain to you that there are certain things that are not appropriate to be spoken."

The day had taken a large turn for the worse at this point, any chance of establishing a happy routine gone. I went to the counselor's office down the hall, hoping that she could explain to me just what was going on, and what Miss Spyridon's and Mr. Russom's problem was, other than the obvious fact that they were not acting as they were supposed to in the circumstances.

I knocked on her door and entered the room and immediately had a problem. She had a purple carpet. I have never liked purple carpets. Purple carpets are very bad. I stood in the doorway waiting for her to come to me, seeing as how I was too young to brave the horrors of purple carpeting.

"Come on in," the woman sitting behind the desk in the room, said.

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"You have purple carpet. I can't touch purple carpet because it's bad."

"Don't worry, my carpet is perfectly safe. Now come sit in the nice comfy chair and we'll have a nice chat about what's troubling you," she said, poking the carpet to attempt to convince me that it would be alright for me to touch it.

"Just because the carpet doesn't do anything to you doesn't mean I'll touch it. Purple carpet is bad."

She rolled her eyes for a moment and then began to walk towards me.

"I'll carry you across the carpet to the chair, okay?"

"No, no touching."

"Alright then, I guess I'll come out here and talk to you." She came out and stood next to me in the hall. She was approximately 165 centimeters tall, quite tall for a woman in fact.

"Now what seems to be the trouble?"

I related to her what had happened up to this point about how Miss Spyridon was fat and sent me to Principal Russom when I told her so who had in turn sent me to the counselor.

"Well you do understand that people don't like it when you say things that are not nice to them, don't you?"

"Maybe."

I don't like the words yes and no, they make my answers too concrete. I am never truly certain of what the correct answer to a question might be.

"Well, then it's not nice to tell Miss Spyridon that she's fat."

"But she is fat."

"I'll grant you that but you need to learn that sometimes its best not to point out people's flaws to them, even if they are really there. Just try not to say anything that could be construed as insulting and apologize to Miss Spyridon if she's still upset."

"Okay," I said because I had no clue what exactly things that could be construed as insulting meant.

I went back to class and decided to cease telling Miss Spyridon that she was fat. Besides, she knew it full well since I had told her. I began learning vocabulary and basic math, which I found rather easy, but uninteresting. I focused primarily on tapping my left index finger against my palm.

"Are you paying attention to me Cecil?"

"No ma'am."

"Well at least you're honest, even if you lack tact. I'll let you off with a warning this time."

I resumed tapping my finger against my palm until it was time for lunch, which was turning out to be another problem. The chicken was alright but the corn was touching the mashed potatoes, this could not be! I had to discard all of the parts of the corn and potatoes that were touching each other and put them on the floor.

Other than that the food was alright, the real difficulty arose when I had to go tinkle. I went to the bathroom and stood in front of one of the urinals, there was already a kid at the adjacent urinal. He was approximately 125 centimeters tall. I decided to greet him as we were going to be in forced proximity to each other and I did not want to startle him and cause him to lose control of his stream of pee pee. I feared this because I had been startled on a few occasions, which had led to some unfortunate accidents.

"Hello!" I said.

"Kiss my shiny white rear end!" The kid replied as he zipped and fastened his pants.

This seemed a most peculiar request, but seeing as how I was the new kid around, and the fact that he was an older kid, who could probably inflict some serious harm on me if he wanted to, I did. Well actually as he had already pulled up his pants I kissed the back of the pants. He looked at me with his eyebrows slanted towards his nose and jogged out of the bathroom. That was completely unexpected, I don't like it when people don't behave as they should. He made a request, I fulfilled it, I should have gotten a thank you, but no he just slanted his eyebrows and ran off. People don't obey the rules like they should. The rest of the school day went reasonably well, I suppose. I mostly amused myself by more finger tapping on my palms, periodically switching hands. As I left class to wait for my mother to pick me up, I overheard a lot of the other kids talking about some weird kid who had just moved into the area, and wondered who they could be talking about, as far as I could tell I was the only new kid in town, but they couldn't possibly be talking about me.

My mother finally arrived to find me throwing these weird squishy fruits that smelled funny at the trees that bore them. I really enjoyed the splat they made when they hit the tree but oh well I got to go home to my nice and orderly polystyrene collection.

On the way home I told my mother all that had happened that day, and how horrible it was, in the hopes that we could move back to our old town, where I had my ideal life schedule firm and regular. She periodically said "You did what?!" but other than that remained relatively silent throughout the car ride.

As we got home I bolted to my room to check on my precious polystyrene. Forty-two cups, check. Thirty-three plates, check. Sixty sets of utensils, check. Everything was arranged exactly in the order that I had left it, which always comforted me. I was the lord of my polystyrene domain. After about an hour of looking at my collection I decided to go outside and jump on the trampoline. On my way out, I found the most wondrous of creatures, a snake. It was a beautiful dark green blackish snake, about 30 centimeters long. I decided to play with it. I've always loved animals because they don't get upset with me when I say things to them and let me talk about polystyrene as much as I want. I took him on the trampoline with me, we went up and down and up and down and up and down. Then my mother looked out the kitchen window and came running out.

"Cecil Shelagh Nevoir! You put that snake down this instant! It could really hurt you!"

Whoa, all three names, that usually meant that I'd done something really bad. I immediately dropped the snake, which bounced up and bit me slightly below my knee. That was not very nice of the snake, we were having so much fun together on the trampoline. How could it have done that to me? Even the animals were not behaving themselves as they should.

My mother then told me that I would not have to go to school the following day, which made me very happy. She then told me that I wasn't going to school because I was going to see a psychologist. This made me unhappy. There was absolutely nothing wrong with me, and everything would be alright if everyone and everything else obeyed the rules that I knew should govern them. So the next day I was stuck with going to see a psychologist named doctor Adelaide Zaide. I looked through a magazine while my mom talked to the doctor in the waiting room and noticed that there were beets in one of the pictures. As beets were very bad things, I tore the picture out of the magazine. For some reason the receptionist did not appreciate the service I had rendered, yet more inexplicable behavior on the part of society. Since the receptionist obviously did not appreciate my assistance, I decided to eavesdrop on the doctor and my mother that were talking in his nearby office. Since there wasn't a lot of background noise I could make out most of the conversation through the door.

"So he's been having behavioral problems?"

"Yes, he's always been a lot more inclined to play alone than with other kids, and it took him a long time to learn to talk. He's also had a very limited amount of things that he likes to do."

"For example?"

"He collects things made from Styrofoam."

I immediately ran up to the door and yelled, "It's polystyrene!"

The eyes of the whole waiting room turned upon me as the door slowly crept open and my mother beckoned me to come into the room. My mother related the recent events that had provoked her to send me here while I stared at my feet and poked my palm with my index finger.

"Cecil, what do you like to do?" Doctor Zaide asked me.

"I like to collect polystyrene and jump on the trampoline, and poke my palm with my index finger."

"And that's all you like to do, no other activities provide you with much enjoyment?"

"Pretty much."

"Mrs. Nevoir, based off what I've seen, your son is autistic. As his language skills are relatively good, he falls into the category of Asperger's Syndrome."

"What does that mean doctor?"

"Basically he's going to need some social skills therapy, and he needs to be taught that other people have feelings independent of how he would wish to act."

"And will he adjust to school and actually be able to get on with life."

"Only time will tell Mrs. Nevoir, but Cecil here seems like a bright enough lad, hopefully he'll learn."

I agree with him about that, but I think that time will tell and I will finally be able to understand how people think and predict their behavior, to bring order our of the apparent chaos that humanity pours into my brain.

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