Walk This Way.

Once, about a year ago, I was feeling really self-conscious, so I called Kacoon on the phone to see if she could cheer me up.

"Kacoon, you don't understand," I said to her in the middle of a tirade. "I think people look at my limp before they look at me, and they judge me for it. Like it's my fault I have cerebral palsy or something."

"What are you talking about?" Kacoon said to me. "Do you know the first time I even noticed that you had a limp?"

"No," I said.

"It was, like, three days after we met," Kacoon said.

"What happened?" I asked her. "You never asked me about it, so I assumed you always knew."

"I didn't tell you about this because I didn't want you to hate me," Kacoon said. "Oh my God, I felt like such a dumbass."

"Why did you feel like that?" I said. "When did you find out I had a disability?"

"You and I were talking at the Information Desk upstairs at the bookstore, and I'd worked there maybe three or four days," she said. "You wanted to show me something, and you headed toward the shelves and said, 'Walk this way.' And I saw the way you were walking, and I thought you were kidding around. I didn't realize until you stopped to let someone pass you that you weren't kidding."

As she told me this, I started laughing. And I had to ask her the dire question, so I did.

"When I walked away, did you walk behind me, limping?" I asked, laughing.

Kacoon guffawed and timidly said, "Yes."

I have never laughed harder in my life than I did when she told me that. Tears came from my eyes, I was laughing so hard.

"Did anyone see you?" I asked her.

"They must have," she said. "Because I did follow you for a while before you stopped. People probably thought I was some jerk, following you like that."

"Did I see you?" I asked her.

"No," she said. "Otherwise, you would've thought I was some insensitive bitch. And you would've hated my guts."

"Oh my God, why didn't you tell me this before?" I asked her, laughing. She and I were having this conversation after a year of close friendship.

"Because I was MORTIFIED," Kacoon said on the phone. "I've never felt like more of a dumbass in my entire life. It was humiliating."

Apparently, hours after the group limping effort, Kacoon got up the courage to ask one of my managers if I had a disability of some sort. And they told her the truth.

"Why didn't you ask me about it?" I asked, laughing out loud some more.

"Because I felt retarded," she said.

"Oh my God, I have to call my mother," I said to her before telling Kacoon how much I loved her and hanging up the phone. "She's going to DIE when she hears this story. Um, in fact, I'll call you back after I tell this story to EVERY PERSON I'VE EVER MET IN MY WHOLE LIFE."

I called about 15 people that night, telling that story. When I called her back, I was so happy. Before I'd talked to her the first time, I'd been so upset. And she changed that by merely humiliating herself.

Last night at Mike's birthday party, I made Kacoon join me in a "re-enactment" of the incident in front of all our friends. And they loved it.

Her impression of my limp, which I hadn't seen before last night, is actually really good.