The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach
It’s Valentine’s Day, and I didn’t get anything for Mrs. Communist. It’s OK, though; we both agree that it’s a stupid, made-up holiday. What she really wants already is in the fridge anyway, chilling inside brown bottles.
Valentine’s Day did, however, play a role in our courtship back in the day.
Our story begins in January 1993, and we were beginning our final semester at Southeast. As such, I wasn’t about to make life hard on myself by taking trigonometry first hour; I’d coasted through Larry Garrison’s first-hour college algebra class the previous semester and “earned” a C for my “effort.” Good enough!
The future Mrs. Communist also was in Larry G’s class. She claims that she tried flirting during class; I recall being too busy trying to stay awake to notice much of anything.
So instead of trig, I decided to take first-hour pottery. I hadn’t taken any art classes during high school, mainly because I have nary an artistic fiber in my body. But it wasn’t math, and a friend of mine (who also was friends with the future Mrs. C) said he was getting into first-hour pottery, so I figured I, too, could play in the mud for an hour.
Forward to that semester’s first day, and I’m late for school. Mr. Linderman had everybody from both first-hour art classes in the front art room, so the room was packed. Not wanting to draw attention to my tardiness, I check for any empty stools close to the door before walking in. Naturally, the only one available was the one next to … *gulp* … the future Mrs. C, who apparently also had decided to take pottery.
Panic started to wash over me. I contemplated dropping pottery and getting back into trig. The future Mrs. C was, at that time, probably the last person on Earth I wanted to sit next to, even though she was the only person on Earth I wanted to sit next to. I’d harbored a crush on her since seventh grade, but I was convinced that she thought I was a tool because of a snarky comment she’d made about my eyebrows (eyebrow, actually) in my ninth-grade yearbook.
I manage to sack up enough to walk in and whisper something stupid like “Is this seat taken?” even though it was plain to anyone who wasn’t dead that nobody was sitting there. That first day of pottery class still ranks in my Top 10 Most Uncomfortable Moments.
It didn’t take long, though, for that trepidation to disappear, and soon we were fast friends, conversing in a most friendly manner. Mrs. C says that she was flirting her ass off. I, being extremely dense, still had no clue.
Then on Valentine’s Day, we had run into each other in between periods that afternoon. We chatted briefly, and before we went our separate ways she gave me a handful of Conversation Hearts. I thanked her, scooped them up and shoved them in my mouth as I walked away. It’s a good thing the future Mrs. C was as determined as I was dense, because that kind of made her mad.
Years later, Mrs. C informed me that the Conversation Hearts she had given me that day were picked out specifically and lovingly for the messages on them and that I was supposed to have noticed those messages and then acted accordingly. Did I tell you I was dense?
This “Zits” strip from a few years back eerily parallels the incident:
