geekyI didn't even question myself. I simply glanced at her, thought, Oh, there's a retarded girl here, and I think her father is, too, then dug into my eggrolls like a wolf in the sheep pen.
After I devoured my eggrolls, I paused long enough to be a bit stunned that I had come up with this very casual assessment--not at the assessment itself, but at the casualness, the unquestioning certainty of it.
Then I asked myself, Why does it manifest this way?
I believe that very little happens in nature without there being either a very good reason or a need for it. I might be completely wrong in this hypothesis, but it's my starting point.
Now I would think, if you're going to have external physical signs of an internal physical problem, then the internal problem would not manifest itself until after the age of reproduction--thus, a need to warn others of the species beforehand, "Don't reproduce with this person."
Why would nature bother with external physical characteristics for a type of mental retardation that is evident from childhood? They're not necessary, yet they exist--for a number of different conditions, not just mental retardation.
I don't know if the physical characteristics of Down's are simply a domino effect from having the third 21st chromosome, or what. But the why of it interests the heck out of me.
