David vs. Women, Episode II
Today has been pretty good so far. I worked for like 3 hours this morning, went to the company's holiday luncheon, and got the rest of the day off. Plus, it gave me an excuse to wear a sport coat, which always makes me feel powerful, important, and good-looking. This, of course, is the exact opposite of how talking about my experience with women makes me feel. So now I find myself in the midst of a dilemma.
Do I ruin the fine mood I'm in and continue relating my misadventures with the fairer sex, or do I break continuity with my previous post for the sake of my own mental health?
This leads me to further question the whole point of this exercise. Why, exactly, would I want this information to be publicly accessible in the first place? What drives me to chronicle the most embarassing aspect of my life and put myself in a right-nasty funk as I do so? What makes me think anyone else might be the least bit interested in reading about it, anyway?
I don't know the answers to these questions, but I do know that I'm not wearing my sport coat anymore, so I'm sure to be in a rotten mood by the end of the evening anyway. Which means more melancholy reflection and self-loathing diatribe for everyone! Hooray!
When we left off, a young David had just been rejected quite hard in the family jewels by the first girl he ever "liked." About a month into the very next school year, however, my family moved and I wound up attending a different school. As such, everything that had happened the year before became basically irrelevant to my social standing. I was still a nerd, of course, but a nerd armed with the knowledge that letting a girl know that you like her is a simply bad idea.
Oddly enough, however, my Great Failure in fourth grade was something quite different from my Great Failure of the year before. Actually, I failed in two ways that year, but I'll cover them both in a bit.
First, I'd like to tell you a little bit about my organizational skills at the time, specifically, the intricate manner in which I maintained the contents of my desk. My technique for organizing my desk throughout elementary school was as follows:
1) Pile up every piece of paper I received inside the desk until it no longer closes all the way.
2) Only clean the desk out when the teacher makes you because it no longer closes all the way.
To illustrate the effectiveness of this strategy, I will tell you that at one point during my primary education I actually discovered a quite rotten egg in my desk when cleaning it. Honest to God, a rotten egg.
So this was the state of things when, not long after starting at this new school, the girl sitting in front of me tucked a note into my desk. She made some comment so that I'd be sure to notice the note being dropped, but for whatever reason, I decided to ignore it at the time. This, of course, meant that I did not see the note again for months, when I was finally forced to tidy things up a bit. I finished emptying my desk shortly before lunch, and decided to give it a read after everyone had already left the classroom. The note was folded several times, and unfolding it once revealed the words "To David, From Jodi," surrounded by little hearts. That was as far as I got before a friend came back and urged me to hurry up to the lunchroom. I dropped the note on the floor, ate, and upon returning to the classroom, promptly dropped the note into the wastebin.
I know. I know.
I don't really understand what made me think that was the appropriate thing to do, but there you have it. Consider, though, that the note was already months old by that point; for all I know she'd already gotten over me by then anyway. Hell, considering that Jodi wasn't even the one who dropped the note in my desk, I don't really even know if she's the one who actually wrote the note in the first place.
This was the first of my great failures that year, though not the worse. No; the worse mistake was telling my parents.
For eight years after that--all through high school, even--I could not talk to, look at, approach, think about this girl or even hear the name "Jodi" without going beet red in the face. And my parents NEVER failed to take advantage of that. "Joooodiiiii," my father would croon, and then they would point, and laugh, and say "Ha ha, look at his face turn red!" I so resented it. I still do.
Well, I think that's a good spot to wrap up this episode. Now, what did we learn today? Two things:
1) Always open and respond to your mail in a timely fashion.
2) Never, ever let your parents know how you feel about anyone. Ever.
Until next time, I bid you warm sandwiches, and cool sheets.
Do I ruin the fine mood I'm in and continue relating my misadventures with the fairer sex, or do I break continuity with my previous post for the sake of my own mental health?
This leads me to further question the whole point of this exercise. Why, exactly, would I want this information to be publicly accessible in the first place? What drives me to chronicle the most embarassing aspect of my life and put myself in a right-nasty funk as I do so? What makes me think anyone else might be the least bit interested in reading about it, anyway?
I don't know the answers to these questions, but I do know that I'm not wearing my sport coat anymore, so I'm sure to be in a rotten mood by the end of the evening anyway. Which means more melancholy reflection and self-loathing diatribe for everyone! Hooray!
When we left off, a young David had just been rejected quite hard in the family jewels by the first girl he ever "liked." About a month into the very next school year, however, my family moved and I wound up attending a different school. As such, everything that had happened the year before became basically irrelevant to my social standing. I was still a nerd, of course, but a nerd armed with the knowledge that letting a girl know that you like her is a simply bad idea.
Oddly enough, however, my Great Failure in fourth grade was something quite different from my Great Failure of the year before. Actually, I failed in two ways that year, but I'll cover them both in a bit.
First, I'd like to tell you a little bit about my organizational skills at the time, specifically, the intricate manner in which I maintained the contents of my desk. My technique for organizing my desk throughout elementary school was as follows:
1) Pile up every piece of paper I received inside the desk until it no longer closes all the way.
2) Only clean the desk out when the teacher makes you because it no longer closes all the way.
To illustrate the effectiveness of this strategy, I will tell you that at one point during my primary education I actually discovered a quite rotten egg in my desk when cleaning it. Honest to God, a rotten egg.
So this was the state of things when, not long after starting at this new school, the girl sitting in front of me tucked a note into my desk. She made some comment so that I'd be sure to notice the note being dropped, but for whatever reason, I decided to ignore it at the time. This, of course, meant that I did not see the note again for months, when I was finally forced to tidy things up a bit. I finished emptying my desk shortly before lunch, and decided to give it a read after everyone had already left the classroom. The note was folded several times, and unfolding it once revealed the words "To David, From Jodi," surrounded by little hearts. That was as far as I got before a friend came back and urged me to hurry up to the lunchroom. I dropped the note on the floor, ate, and upon returning to the classroom, promptly dropped the note into the wastebin.
I know. I know.
I don't really understand what made me think that was the appropriate thing to do, but there you have it. Consider, though, that the note was already months old by that point; for all I know she'd already gotten over me by then anyway. Hell, considering that Jodi wasn't even the one who dropped the note in my desk, I don't really even know if she's the one who actually wrote the note in the first place.
This was the first of my great failures that year, though not the worse. No; the worse mistake was telling my parents.
For eight years after that--all through high school, even--I could not talk to, look at, approach, think about this girl or even hear the name "Jodi" without going beet red in the face. And my parents NEVER failed to take advantage of that. "Joooodiiiii," my father would croon, and then they would point, and laugh, and say "Ha ha, look at his face turn red!" I so resented it. I still do.
Well, I think that's a good spot to wrap up this episode. Now, what did we learn today? Two things:
1) Always open and respond to your mail in a timely fashion.
2) Never, ever let your parents know how you feel about anyone. Ever.
Until next time, I bid you warm sandwiches, and cool sheets.
posted by David R. Nevel | 2:22 PM
1 Comments:
Wow. Was that Jodi Bjoin (sp?)? What tortured webs we weave.
Regarding the "point" of this exercise: your experience may obviously be different. Personally, I find that the pain of such events tends to diminish with age, and it can be therapeutic to bring it out into the open to show you have control over it. And we're interested in reading about it because we love drama, and have those moments where we wince and say, "Yeah, I remember what that feels like."
Just remember to be a better parent to your own kids.
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