3rd or 4th grade? I can't really remember, but what's the difference anyway? The gossip was thick within the walls of Salmon Creek Elementary school. Morgan Baker was having a birthday party. And I was invited.
Now this was Morgan-fucking-Baker. This was a big deal. The cutest girl in school. A combination of big brown eyes and a spatter of freckles on her nose that would put Wonder Years' Winnie Cooper to shame.
And she liked me. And I liked her. And everyone in the school knew it. Of course, I couldn't tell her that. And she couldn't didn't dare tell me. But that's how shit rolls when you're in love at a time when long division is the most stressful component of your life.
Morgan was having her birthday at the go-to spot of the times; a classic skate rink where the carpet was shaggy, cherry pop was the most popular drink on the menu, and if you leaned up against the wall for too long, you'd get stuck to it. This was Golden Skate.
It was the day of the party and I completely forget to get a gift, which I'm going to blame on the nerves. How could I think strategically about getting the love of my life the perfect birthday gift when I had really needed to focus on how I was going to keep my fries down when I asked her to couple skate?
So when the old man drops me off at the rink, I beg him to make a run to Vancouver Mall to pick something up for her. There's no way I could go into the ball empty handed! I'm already fucking up the most important day of my life.
Dad: What do you want me to get her? What do you kids like these days?
Me: I dunno, get her a book.
Dad: Oh, like a Tin Tin comic?
Me: No, Dad! RL Stine! RL Stine is radical.
After what seems like an eternity, Tho rushes back and hands off a wrapped gift. Whew. Crisis averted. I owe you big time Pops; the next report card won't have a single check-plus. Only pluses.
Fast forward to the opening of the presents. Everyone is peeing their hammer pants in anticipation to see what I got the birthday girl because, I'm the unspoken-but-everyone-knows-it crush. Mrs. Baker reaches for the last present, my present, and hands it over to Morgan.
"I wonder what this could be?" Mrs Baker says with a smile and wink.
I have no idea either. Huh. I'm kinda curious myself actually.
Morgan Baker opens it up and gingerly pulls out two paperbacks. Her brown eyes bulge and her trademark freckles vanish in a wave of blush.
The Girlfriend by RL Stine.
The Boyfriend by RL Stine.
Now it's my turn for my eyes to get as wide as dinner plates. I want to die. I want to fucking die. I want to reach over the table and grab an ice cream scoop and take out my eyes.
My so-called "friends" erupt in giggles and gasps. Mr. and Mrs. Baker have their hands covering their mouths hiding (not very well, I might add) their smiles, their bodies are shaking, barely able to contain themselves.
The deal is off, dad.
20 comments:
You're back! Yay! *cough* erm, I mean hey dude. Welcome back. Hope your blogosphere sabbatical was radical.
Oh young love. I remember that so well. It's cute how adults treat kid crushes as precious and try to encourage it. As far as my memory goes, we did not want any acknowledgement of our crushes whatsoever. It was better to live it out at a distance. An open secret as your crush was. So what was the result? Did she never speak to you again? Did everyone tease you mercilessly for weeks?
-Olive
(formerly of cassette45.wordpress)
Best. Story. EVER.
OK, so I know you don't wanna hear it, but SMOOTH MOVE, OLD MAN! Wing man of the century - but in saying that, I hope you got lots of therapy.
:)
Are you back?
Cute story :)
Ah young love. So innocent, yet always so mortifying.
I also subscribed to the "I'll die if he finds out I'm IN LOOOOOVEEE with him" club.
Your dad knew exactly what he was doing. He's awesome.
Ah, to be young and in love. But that is absolutely something my Mother would have done to me.
Like for my 16th she made invites that said, Sweet Sixteen and NEVER been kissed. Oh yea, and she MADE me hand them out. Awesome.
ps. I had totally been kissed.
That's a cute story. Even better if it's true.
It sounds like your old man deserved to kneel on some uncooked rice for this betrayal.
LOL! Cute.
haha! could have been worse- he could have gone over your head and gotten the tin tin comic instead
haha priceless!
Oh my goodness, are you back? I just finished reading your blog from the beginning (after I'd read Beth's - are you two still together??) and didn't expect to see anything new! Awesome post, that's hilarious.
Snap. I just read your entire blog in two days - somehow I ended up on the Glamour website (which would be less weird if I wasn't a heterosexual twenty-year-old male), found a post in the "How We Met" section about SO@24 and read the thing from start to finish over a 48 hour period.
I feel as if I somehow just absorbed a few years of your life in just a few days. I can't explain. And look at my luck, you've just posted after what would have been a long, long hiatus if I had been reading in real time.
I'm aware this has already been asked but I have to know - what happened to Beth? Real Beth that is, not old Beth. Surely you can't just stumble back in here and not tell us anything! I can't even go to her blog as an alternative since it appears to abruptly stop when you hit the scene.
Anyway, I really enjoyed the blog. I want to say that first because I want that to be clear so I don't offend to much when I say that it didn't quite end as spectacularly as I expected. You've given your reasons for that and that's fine; when the lines started to blur and you couldn't be as honest anymore well, it just wasn't going to be the same. I'll just say that it all ended a little abruptly considering the rollercoaster ride it took to get there.
Some of the events that transpired in here were incredible. The wedding takes the cake for me, with the perfect night and then the subsequent explosion the next day - I expect to see that in a movie or something someday.
Huge mindfuck since I glanced through the Glamour article and saw the name 'Beth' before decided to read the actual blog first. Which basically meant I spent the majority of the blog (especially after the wedding incident) waiting for the big reconciliation and falling in love with old Beth in some weird "we were always meant to be/she should've stepped up too/eventually you two would figure your shit out and you'd get that damned carrot". But I guess that not happening is what makes the blog real.
Sorry for diverging from this actual blog post. Did want to say that as a guy in my position at this time in his life, I related to a great deal of this blog and even in the parts where I didn't, still found myself deeply engrossed. Hope to hear more news, some kind of post-post-epilogue, ha.
yah, you're back! great story!
Ron, thank you so much for the comment. Feel free to shoot me an email at the So@24 address and I'll give you the downlow.
Haha... I smiled when you said the love of your life, but you're were just a child! Pure love no? In many ways better than adult love...
Your funny....you should really write more.
welcome back. but i must ask: did you and real beth break up? is that why you're blogging again?
Did you and Beth break up?
Post a Comment