And taking all that into account, his tendencies and the way people reacted to them, it's not hard to realize that Kevin Slade actually definitely did have a staring problem, which everyone in the class already knew, but when Kevin brought in a note it was confirmed, we did not read the note but we did not need to in order to know that the rumors were true, granted it's not really rumor if it's obvious to everyone that you have this thing whereby you stare at somebody for extended periods of time without rest and then when the person you are staring at happens to looks back at you, not even staring back, just glancing up seemingly randomly to politely let you know, totally without attitude, without taking offense in any way, that you are doing it again, you do not stop staring like any normal person would, instead you keep on staring until Miss Dredda notices and says Kev, what did you get for problem number eight? in an extremely songlike manner and then it takes you ten or more seconds to snap out of it and realize that someone is actually talking directly to you and you have to stop digging your eyeballs into someone else's personal space bubble which is so horrible and embarrassing for the person whose space bubble is being invaded because she already gets easily distracted from her schoolwork and you aren't making it any easier for her to keep up with the rest of the class. But really for him this was a life issue, which we disregarded at the time, intentionally, life issues which we learned about in the Lessons On Coping and Dealing assembly, now in retrospect we see that it was something that affected his life daily, whether he liked it or not, and most likely did not as who would like being constantly asked if they had been working out on the StareMaster5000 lately, and apparently, and we know this now but we didn't know it then, and not that it wasn't possible to know this then, we just chose to ignore it, it's possible to scientifically explain or prove how everyone isn't wired the same way and how some people walk with crutches at all times even though their legs aren't broken and how some people can't learn right, now many special provisions are made for people who cannot learn right, and they're classified as medical conditions, so I guess Kevin Slade has that on his side, he wasn't just a retard, which is probably what that note he brought in said, Dear Rutherford B. Hayes Elementary School: Big Kev scored a bonafide 127 out of a possible 100 on our staring problem test so do not punish him too severely. Sincerely, The Staring Doctor P.S. He is not a retard. And although it gave a lot of us the heebie jeebies at the time I'd have to say he seemed pretty harmless and nonconfrontational and kind of ashamed and I am almost completely positive that he is not capable of thinking something mean like I HAD YOU PEGGED AS A LESBO FROM THE GETGO, which is what somebody carved deep into my desktop when I wasn't looking in order to purposefully piss me off.