When I was in middle school, I rode the school bus with a boy a grade ahead of me who I’ll call Pants. Pants was obsessed with the Sonic the Hedgehog series. And not just a little bit obsessed. Pants was obsessed to the point where he insisted vehemently to all of his classmates that he was actually a hedgehog, and that in a secret lab experiment, he’d been given the capability to speak and take on human form, as well as super strength and intelligence. He was so insistent that part of me thinks that he actually believed this about himself.

Pants had a massive crush on my best friend at the time, who I’ll call Sally, who was, as you probably guessed, wasn’t at all interested. At one point, he got into a physical fight with another guy over her. When she rejected him after this, he responded by curling up in the fetal position for the rest of the bus ride.

Another bus ride, there was a horrible smell, like rotting cheese. Since middle schoolers tend to be mean, a lot of the other kids on the bus started teasing Pants about it, saying that the smell was probably him. He responded by saying “Actually, you’re probably right.” and pulling a random chunk of rotting cheese that he’d been carrying for some unknown reason in his backpack.