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My friends are assholes...

...well, some of them. The one in particular I'm thinking of totally has is coming. Making fun of mentally handicapped individuals definitely makes you a jerk.

Last year ADHD was having a bonfire in his yard. The usual mix of rednecks, self-proclaimed hippies and grad students were in attendance. During a lull in conversation, one of ADHDs friends (we'll call him Sean) starts yelling at a guy out on the sidewalk. Turns out he knows this guy, but not as a result of conventional means. The guy (we'll call him Robert) used to randomly walk into Sean's old house when they were having parties. As far as I can tell, Robert has some form of autism (perhaps Asperger's) and is rather high functioning. Apparently he's independent enough for his caretakers to allow him to wander the streets alone after dark in a college town...

So anyway, Robert hears Sean yelling and wanders over to the bonfire. The conversation starts back up and it becomes apparent that Robert, like the Rainman, knows more than all of us combined about politics, Mr. Rogers and the meaning of life in general. Most of us were drunk enough to find his lectures enlightening, however, his other behavior was a bit distracting. While he was talking, Robert kept pulling napkins from a neverending stash in his pocket and throwing them into the fire.

Most people at the party had the common sense to realize that Robert was a bit off and the common decency to overlook the odd behavior. Except Sean.

Sean: "Hey Robert, whatcha got there? Are those jizz rags?"
Robert: "They are not jizz rags!"
Sean: "I think they are! That's disgusting... you carry jizz rags in your pockets!"
Robert: "You are being very offensive! They are not jizz rags!"

The above interaction went on for about fifteen minutes in the same general pattern, with the rest of us interupting occasionally to tell Sean to "shut the fuck up" and telling Robert not to listen to Sean because Sean is always an "offensive douchebag."

After awhile, Sean got sick of making fun of a harmless individual and moved on to another target. We ran out of booze and decided to move the party downtown. We weren't quite sure what to do about Robert, but he seemed quite happy to follow us, all the while extolling the many virtues of Fred Rogers. By the time we got downtown, Robert had disappeared, and we pretty much forgot he had been there at all. And that was the last we saw of Robert.

Until last fall.

I had decided to sell some of my worthless shit in a yard sale in front of my apartment. Really, it was just an excuse to drink beer and sit in the sun. ADHD and a couple of other friends were there as well. At around 3pm, we saw the mailman coming down the street with another person in tow. The mailman and his companion seemed to be in an intense discussion... until I saw that when the mailman would walk up a driveway to deliver mail, his companion would remain on the sidewalk and continue talking. It then became apparent that the mailman was not only very disinterested in what his friend had to say, but seemed to actually resent his friend's company. As they got closer we saw the "friend" of the mailman was none other than Robert. Robert was actually following the mailman...

As a result of split second decision making, we (my friends and I) found ourselves hiding behind my house in order to avoid being spotted by Robert and having to listen to a monologue on Arpartheid legislation.

That is when I realized Sean is not unique. I'm an asshole too.