I have something to relegate along the lead-poisoned veins of the interweb.

Right when I was leaving school, literally, right as I was stepping out the door to where everybody waits for the buses, I saw a seventh grader I know, looking upset, with his hands over his throat, and a special ed teacher holding his backpack, standing there. I would never have known what was going on, had not the Social Studies teacher I had in seventh grade been right ahead of me, and the teachers conversed, and right as my foot hit the pavement outside, I heard the special ed teacher say the kid had tried to strangle himself. Morbidly enough, I was hardly surprised.

The kid is a very odd, creepy person. I went to the same elementary school as him, and he lives on a street near mine, so he rides the same bus as I do. Thus, I've seen a lot of his akward, disturbing behavior over the years. He always has to be first on the bus-- He pushes anybody who might get on before him out of the way, and the bus driver has to remind him to wait for any high school students who might be getting off. In the bathroom, he always heads down to the very last stall, and in there, he makes high-pitched squealing and shrieking noises, jumps up and down, and other activities. He does this outside the stall, too, just with running around. Everybody's seen him do it at least once. He peeks under stalls, and crawls under locked ones.

I can understand some of the kid's problems interacting with other people-- I've had them-- but for the most part, he scares me and everybody else. He doesn't know what 'personal space' and 'keep your hands to yourself' means, either. I have an afterschool group on Tuesdays that he goes to as well, and even the way he talks is creepy. I feel kind of sorry for him. Doesn't make me any more comfortable being near him, though. Boy, is it fun to be constantly anxious and bitter at the same time.

Suffice to say, that was the most interesting part of my day. I hope the kid gets help.