God I am an idiot

If there is one thing that I have learned as of late, it is that things are the way they are for a reason. This is especially important if you tend to romanticize the past like moi. With that in mind, let’s talk about the past. In 7th grade I was picked to be a patrol. Only being familiar with my little backward slice of America, I should perhaps clarify “what a patrol is” to any of my Yankee readership. And yes, you are a Yankee if you do not come from Virginia on down. Some of us don’t even include Missouri and they fought for the boys in gray during that little skirmish some years back. Anyway, being a patrol is similar to being a member of a corrupt police organization. You monitor the dark regions of the town (elementary school) for deviants that run up stairs (speed) and don’t wash their hands after a bit of personal business (show contempt for the establishment), and you deal out raw justice as seen through the eyes of a twelve year old. Justice including: walking up and down stair wells until you drop, and scrubbing your hands until they look like they belong to a 3rd degree burn victim. Anyway, long story made short, at the end of the year the patrols got to spend four days of rest and recreation in our nation’s capital, and you can bet your ass, I was one of them. A long bumpy night spent lying in the grease and gray bubble gum of an Amtrak railway car and I found myself blowing in the wind with the rest of the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C. I am embarrassed to admit that I can not remember all of the places that we visited; the entire trip is a bit of a jumble for me. Monuments, majestic buildings, museums, cathedrals all ran together like watercolors in my brain. What I do remember is the hotel, the restaurants, the bus rides and a girl named Susan H. I had gotten word through that grapevine that some girl from North Roswell Elementary liked me. Being the little pessimist that I was and am I figured that the girl would resemble a Sasquatch with Spina Bifida at best. I seem to remember running like hell along some cat walk trying to avoid meeting her, I would regret this decision later on. Early the next morning when our buses were getting warmed up, I was physically forced into this girl’s company by her best friend. I raised my eyes from the ground slowly and braced myself for a vision of horror.

“Oh my God, she is cute. She is more than cute, she is hot. Oh my God, what do I say? Say something funny. Show her how strong you are…make a muscle.. no I have a better idea...”

My plan seemed perfectly reasonable to my twelve year old mind…even genius. I took the Coke that I was drinking and said, “I also like the easy opening cans.” (Mimicking a popular television commercial at the time) Then I tore the aluminum can apart and slung the last sip of brown sticky cola onto her white rabbit skin jacket. She screamed with surprise, gave me a look that said “you are goofy but I like you”, and ran to board her bus. I spent the rest of the trip, trying to find her. I memorized the number of the bus that she was on, and looked for it everywhere: Mt. Vernon, the Lincoln Memorial, even Arlington Cemetery. I finally saw her on the last day at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. I remember holding hands and buying her a flower for a penny from a Hari Krishna. Then she had to go, and that was that. Over the next four years we had a few brief telephone conversations and once I saw her at the Roswell library (the worst smelling library in Georgia). She told me that she was in love with some guy from Georgia Tech or the University of Georgia and I acted like I was happy for her and countered with some happy bullshit lie about my life. God I am an idiot.