Ghosts of Crushes Past
My 7-year old son got off a classroom video chat the other day and remarked that he thinks his First Grade teacher is pretty. “There it is,” I thought to myself. “His first crush.” Well, his first crush if you don’t count his vow last year that he was going to marry Mommy. He even gave his mother a plastic “engagement” ring, which didn’t make me insecure at all, because what I paid for an engagement ring had to be five times as much as his was worth, so he just looked cheap.
As a kid, I had my own share of fleeting infatuations with schoolteachers. I recall desperately wanting to get good marks in 10th-grade physics because I was hot for teacher. I asked God to bless me with the brain of an Isaac Newton. What I got instead was the brain of a Fig Newton. I flunked the first three tests, and from then on my chances of impressing my physics teacher became smaller than those tiny futons in an atom.
Before that, my first schoolteacher crush was in 4th grade. Her name was Miss Forster, and everyone in the class thought she was wonderful. Despite the age difference, I knew that someday I would marry her and we would live happily ever after in a really cool tree fort.
Miss Forster had other plans as it turned out, and in the spring she invited the whole class to attend her summer wedding to some big jerk I’d never heard of. On the big day in August, when my mother asked me if I wanted to attend, I refused. I wished to be conspicuous by my absence. I wanted Miss Forster, at the altar, to look back over her shoulder and scan the crowd for my face. Not finding it, she would deduce the reason I wasn’t there and feel terrible for breaking my heart. Her special day would be ruined and I would have my revenge. Whether she actually struggled with this or not I never discovered, for after her honeymoon she moved away, to begin a new life with a new name (a new name I hoped was something unfortunate, like Mrs. McStupidface).
After that, my tender heart was wary of entanglement with the fairer sex until 6th grade. That was the year of my first kiss. Alison Jones at the school dance. Yes, it was a speedy smooch, but it opened my eyes to just how glorious 1/100th of a second could be. I was in heaven… and while I was there I begged God to make Alison fall in love with me and be mine forevermore.
ME: She’s the “one”, Lord. I know it.
GOD: You don’t know anything. You’re in 6th grade. Save your prayers for something important, like passing 10th grade physics.
ME: Who cares about that?! Thanks for nothing!!
GOD: You’re going to regret that outburst, Mr. Fig Newton.
Snapping out of my dream-state, I looked into Alison’s eyes and went for a second kiss. I missed her lips entirely, barely grazing her chin. For Alison this shattered the magic completely, and for the rest of the evening she and her friends giggled unmercifully at my clumsiness.
ME: Please strike her dead with lightning, Lord.
GOD: I’d let you do it but you’d probably miss.
ME: Hilarious. Tomorrow I’m starting an atheist club at school.
So anyway, we’ll see how long my son’s crush on his First Grade teacher lasts. More than for her looks, I hope he appreciates her kind heart. She’s much kinder, I’m sure, than Mrs. McStupidface, wherever that two-timer is.