7and8

Have you ever known someone with a very awkward personality that has to have a reasonable explanation of its origin but is not readily apparent?

I met a boy at camp this summer, I'll change his name to Jick (Jasshole is too long) for the purposes of this BLOG.
Jick, most times, will not listen to what grown-up say. There are a number of reasons for this: 1-he needs to be right, 2-he wants to do what he wants to do. I was using every parental skill I had but was undercut by a softy-mom (or less tyrannical than me).
Halfway through camp 7 begs me to take the bus to camp rather than drive in a comfortable, air conditioned van with a DVD player and ample suspension. Boys find novelty in the darnedest places.
The bus had many amenities too: Back jarring bumps, arthritic flare-ups for those with the proper knees, deafening ambiance...everything you enjoyed as a child only now smaller, somehow, and more annoying. There was the hot bus driver-lady that is new since I was tortured by redneck ladies called maggot and guys named Ed whose hidden still one better not trip over unless they wanted to squeal like a pig.
The bus also carried Jick. Jick wanted all of the boys to pay attention to him. He did not accomplish this with antics but rather worldliness. He had a number of ways to do this. He talked about his Zune, PSP, DS Lite, PS3, XBOX, etc. at first I thought he was full of it but I later found out that he was indeed bragging about the things he did own. He talked, in detail, about a number of related technical aspects of gaming and computing. I had to school his superior ass when he said there were 100 bits in a byte. In a few aspects Jick is impressively smart and convincing.
Then he started to try to buy attention. He announced, "I have four rice krispy treats. Who wants one?" then proceeded to give and take them back based on some scale of friendship he must have thought was fair. Then he started talking about how much money he had on him, and how he was going to buy pop/soda/cokes for a bunch of people at camp. Silly me thought he was repaying a dept or doing a good turn. Nope. Another charming boy who I will call Merk came up to our group early that morning after we had arrived on the bus and said, "Some idiot is up at the coke machine buying everyone sodas." and he said this as only Merk can. That was morning one.
Morning two comes and goes and he tries to ensnare me with my opinion of who I think he should pick in his NBA 07 psp game.
Afternoon he has all of the kids in the back of the bus listening to him talk about all of the movies he watches. He explains to them that the rating system goes: G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17, X. Luckily he stopped there but then he starts to give examples of why certain movies where rated they way they were. I stopped the conversation before he could impart to 8 why Clearks 2 was R.
The last morning he simply listened to his Zune and sang Beatles songs, very loudly, all the way to camp. Luckily he didn't get to sing the Metallica playlist.

I came to realize that all this kid really wants, besides and iPhone, is to be loved. He tries so freakin' hard to fill whatever void he has with other people and things. He appreciates authority but doesn't know what to do when confronted with it. I'm not saying his family are bad people just bad at giving this boy real coping skills. I am judging them harshly, because I am a prick who knows Jick deserves better.