Memory Monday: The Mortification of the First (Unrequited) Crush...

He was beautiful; The eyes (I no longer remember what color they were, but at the time, they make my knees weak). The smile. The hair-It was like Boy Movie Star hair.

I discovered him when I became friends with his sister. He was impossible not to notice. Cool, confident and could play the piano like I had never seen.

It became my mission to get him to notice me.

Trust me. He noticed...but for all the wrong reasons.

For two years I was nervous in his presence yet knew he didn't even know I was alive. Oh how I swooned!! His hair reminded me of the cherished Christian Slater poster I lost when my two best friends were goofing off one night and smeared Noxema all of it. I swore I'd never speak to them for such a vial offense....(that lasted two hours).

Then, one fateful day, he finally noticed! It was Saturday morning. I took a break from my weekend chores when I passed by a window and noticed he and his best friend were jumping on the friend's backyard trampoline right across the street.

I couldn't help but stare. I tucked myself close to the corner of the window, trying to be discreet, while gazing upon him like he was copied from an ancient sculpture of a Greek athlete. The way he jumped was just so...so...artistic, like he was dancing in the air. His smile made the birds sing around him.

I don't know how long I was gawking at him, and must have been daydreaming about the souped-up station wagon full of kids we were destined to have...too much to notice they had stopped jumping and were now huddled together whispering. Before I knew what was happening, they turned around together, pointed straight at me and exclaimed...'Hey!! Hahahahahaha!!"

There is something completely humiliating about being pointed and laughed at for a 13 year old. I wanted to shrink and die. I learned that day, that I if I'm going to stop and stare at people, I should at least avoid drooling.

Unfortunately, it doesn't end there.

I thought for sure that we at least bonded when I shared my scented Avon body lotion with him and the $5.00 my parents gave me for our co-ed overnight activity. He didn't even pay me back.

A few months later, during our weekly church youth activity, I noticed him in the hall. Alone. So, naturally, I had to think fast for a way to impress him with my smooth and cool moves. I chose to start jogging and very enthusiastically waved to him in surprise at meeting him in such a place. And for the smoothest yet, I managed to trip and from the momentum of my peppy jog, landed flat on my face after accidentally making the most unladylike and mortifying sound known to prepubescent girls everywhere.

If only it ended there.

Months later, my friend Kristina had missed a few days of school. Like a good friend, I decided to make her a treat in the form of sugar cookies shaped like Gingerbread men. They were cute and covered in frosting. Proud of my efforts, I left the house on foot, eager to wipe the fevered brow of my ailing friend who, without those treats, would certainly be on her deathbed.

Since my neighbor was his best friend and all, he happened to be jumping on his trampoline again. This time, I was determined not to care. No girl should suffer the defeat of abject humiliation for a silly boy. I was not going to budge.

NOT GOING TO BUDGE...

Then he called my name. MY NAME!--the one I thought for sure he didn't know. Perhaps those other interactions with him weren't that embarrassing. I stopped and turned around to face him. He looked at me with those eyes, ran his fingers through his perfect hair and asked me for one of those cookies.

I said 'No' in an effort to play hard-to-get. I thought I was doing rather well. With my little plate of sugar cookies, I was in control of the destiny of that futuristic station wagon. Then he pleaded, one more time, for a cookie.

I wasn't going to bend on giving him a cookie BUT decided to compromise, only a little, and agreed to let him have all the heads of the sugar cookie men. Which he promptly gobbled up, thanked me for and said goodbye.

A few minutes later, I arrived at Kristina's house and gave her the gift. It was then, looking at my offering, those humiliated and headless Sugar Cookie men, that I lost interest in my Crush, we'll call him Sam, and decided that no boy is worth destroying a perfectly whole and lovingly presented cookie.

No matter how great his hair was.

That is...

Until I met Roger, who knew how to dance to C&C Music Factory. But that is an entirely different story.