The backpacks tell me.

When back-to-school season begins, and a new cast of characters appears on childrens' schoolbags -- last year, Spiderman and the Fantastic Four; this year, Superman and Cars -- I know another year has passed me by at Wal-Mart.

When I first arrived in Dallas, I papered the Metroplex with my resumé. Diligently, I faxed daily and waited in vain for an interview request. Eventually I applied at the Wal-Mart nearby, because the phone never rang.

During my first days on the job I counted out my till and wiped down the rubber conveyor belt, while the thought "I am a Wal-Mart cashier" rang in my head. Disbelief and nausea and despair, to the tune of a thousand checkout beeps.

~*~*~*

You tell yourself it's okay. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. Five years pass and the feeling that your intelligence is dribbling out your ears trickles down and eventually dries up completely. You've reached some sort of equilibrium point, you think. Input equals outflow in a dynamic system.

And then you strike up a conversation over lunch one day. Topics leapfrog from Guild Wars to hybrid vehicles to Google to day trading. Before you know it, you've overstayed your lunch hour by half. A third party observes dryly, "You find him fascinating, don't you?"

You wouldn't have put it that way.

On the way home you try to tell Patrick how you feel. You were running out of English, barely keeping pace with the flow of ideas. That never happens. That's not supposed to happen.

For the first time in recent memory you felt stupid.