It should be stated for the record that the following occurred while I was in summer school between fourth and fifth grade. No, I wasn’t a troubled student being subjected to the educational equivalent of incarceration. I was a lonely, bespectacled outcast who only managed to find social interaction at school and who volunteered to go to summer school in an attempt to maintain external relationships. I think that’s important for context.

So the year was 1988 and I was attending summer school at Pine Valley Intermediate School. I had selected music and English classes, which conveniently were my best subjects; I was sure this strategy would result in my classmates being impressed at my intellectual prowess. While my fellow students recognized my ruse early on, they were at least more willing to accept me than the kids from my school who had known me since kindergarten and were in no mood to let me be me.

In what would be the first invitation to absolutely anything in my young life, a few of the other students from my music class invited me to participate in the summer school talent show with them. They were planning an elaborate lip sync to Billy Ocean’s “Get Out of My Dreams (Get Into My Car)” and were looking for someone to mimic the saxophone solo in the middle of the song. While I understood that I was only selected because of the fact that I owned a saxophone, at least I was invited. I had never been invited to the birthday parties, pool parties, and other mysterious gatherings I knew kids had. There was no way I was going to turn this opportunity down.

We didn’t have any time to practice as a group. The other kids were picked up right after school by their parents, probably because the school was supposed to be a penalty. So we were going in cold. The oldest member of our “band” was named Will. His age gave him status, as did the fact that he owned a pair of Vuarnet sunglasses. As I clumsily strapped my sax over the white sports coat I’d begged my mother to purchase, Will walked over and handed me his prized sunglasses. “Wear these,” he said. “Sax players should look cool.”

In all the years that have passed since then, I don’t think I’ve ever had a moment of validation quite like that one. I’ve won awards, gotten jobs, had some great relationships and friendships, but few of them compare to being given those sunglasses. So we walked out and our song started. Will, playing the lead singer, started fake-belting away as our faux drummer and the rest of the pseudo-rhythm section tapped along. I merely swayed back and forth because of the lack of sax parts in most of the song. Then it was go time. The solo started and I was on. Legs spread out as only James Hetfield could appreciate. Sunglasses on. Sports coat sleeves rolled up. My fingers dancing all over the instrument (of course, I had no real idea how to play a song so complex.) After my big moment I rocked out while Will finished the song. We left the stage on a huge high, sure that we’d created rock history.

That’s when I saw them: Kids from my school. The dumb popular kids who had been sent to summer school for punishment. They had been in the front row at the talent show. My first thought was that this was a great thing – they’d seen that I was a badass saxophone player in a practically real rock band. They would tell the tale to the rest of the school and I’d suddenly be elevated from outcast to rock star. One of them approached me. He looked me up and down. “Nice sunglasses, dork!” he said. Then he laughed. They ALL laughed. Will and the other guys tried to help me save face, but there was no going back.

The immediate effect of this humiliation was a lack of interest in the saxophone. I suddenly didn’t want to play any more, and a few years later when it got stolen in the school parking lot I didn’t make much of an attempt to get my parents to replace it. The long-term effect has been that every single time I hear “Get Out of My Dreams” I’m brought right back to that day. I’ve played in bands since, done public speaking, have no problems dancing and being outgoing, but when that Billy Ocean song comes on, in a split second I’m a shy, lonely kid in a bad sports coat and ridiculous sunglasses, ashamed of having made a fool of myself.