Puff and Huff

I wonder about some of the choices I’ve made.  I look at pictures of my senior photo hair and wonder what I was thinking when I sprayed it with Sun-In and scrunched it to curliness.  I wonder why I thought that pink silk dress was the right choice for Freshman Rush.  I also wonder why I chose my first serious boyfriend over another who was competing for my affections at the time. 

He sat in front of me in French class.  He was one of those 15-year-old kids who would have required a parent for PG-13 movies, since nobody would have believed he was a day over 11.  Small.  Blonde.  A face covered in blonde fuzz that was invisible on his blonde face.  Not 58 inches tall, he would have lost most snowball wars with any feisty fifth-graders who were fighting over a Wii.

He was also brilliant.  A vocabulary that would have perplexed most high school graduates.  A quick learner who was in the advanced French class even though he was a year behind me.  AP this, gifted that.  He was one of those kids.

And he was in love with me.

Okay, so “in love” is a bit of an overstatement.  Let’s face it, what teenager is capable of falling in love when the relationship is based solely on foreign words, impressive banter, a mutual appreciation for U2, and a few rides home from school?

However. 

Once, when we took a side trip to the mall before reporting to our respective homes, I pointed out a Puff-A-Lump.  Do you remember those things?  Fluffy stuffed animals puffed with squishy goodness? 

“I LOVE these things!”

“Why?  They’re ridiculous. And you see that Fisher Price label?  They’re for babies.”

“Look how cute it is!  My birthday is coming up.  Why don’t you see what you can do?”  I joked.  We spent at least two hours in the toy store.

The next week, when he came into French class, he shoved the Puff-a-Lump in my face.

“Here!” He groaned, acting like it was the most humiliating thing he had ever done.  The very tippiest tip corners of his mouth were turned up while the rest was a resolute frown of indignation.

A few weeks later, I went on a date with someone else.  Someone I’d met during the school play who asked me out in some small gesture way.  He had big teeth, shiny hair, and a questionable appreciation for Elvis.  Someone whose jokes were closer to Jim Carrey than Jerry Seinfeld.

“Why are you going out with HIM?”  His face contorted into one of those funhouse alien warps when he asked me this question.  I knew he was hurt, but I didn’t know the extent of it.  Until.

Sidebar: Later, a male classmate would say, “Why are you going out with HIM?  You can do so much better than that.”  This was the same classmate who had told me I had the best legs on the squad.  I told him it was none of his business, but puzzled over the fact that so many people were asking me that.

“We have fun.”  Never mind that I had a different kind of fun with the blonde.  A more intellectually stimulated version of entertainment that had the chance of raising my IQ a few points.  Compared to my then paramour who cracked dim-witted jokes and couldn’t pass Geometry if telepathically given the answers during each exam.  Mostly because he’d see something shiny or dull or smoky or transparent and let his mind wander toward it in a constant state of distraction and something better.

The blonde and I didn’t speak much after that. 

That year, he signed my yearbook.  Over an ad so his writing is barely discernable.

You really do not believe that I hate you very much, despite the fact that I call you obscenities frequently.  Thus, I would like to tear the head off of your little Puff-a-Lump.  Luv ya.

He went to a top 20 school and is now a journalist.  The one I chose barely graduated from high school and is an out-of-work actor who’s been divorced twice and has five kids. 

I’ve seen every episode of Seinfeld at least four times and only finished two Jim Carrey movies.  I guess twenty-five years ago, I thought talking through your ass was more entertaining than the yada yada.