A Love Story

She was a curly haired, freckle face and she was the it girl of my third grade class. You know the one I am referring to. There is one in every class and if you are a woman reading this and you don't know what I'm talking about, then it was you. Walking into class with your pony-under-a-waterfall trapper keeper lighting the whole room with your smile and leading the other giggly girls around the playground as though you were some sort of enchantress. She was all of that.

And me? I was always the shy kid. The one that sat in the middle of the room because I knew the back got too much attention. I just wanted to blend in and not be noticed and I had never wanted to befriend anyone in my class until she came along. I desperately wanted to make the impression and that year I knew just how I was going to do it. In the most romantic way I knew how; I would give her a valentine.

When the thought came to me I knew right away it had to be something special. No paper cut out with a picture of a muppet and her name on the back would be good enough so I began saving every penny I earned. The day before Valentines day, I was at the grocery store with my mom and there it was, the solution to all my problems, the heart shaped box of chocolate. With all the money I had, I bought that little four piece box and a proud smile grew across my face. How could she refuse this amazing act of romance? She will be my valentine for sure!

The next morning, I got to class early and slid the heart shaped symbol of my affection into her crudely decorated shoe box and waited patiently for her to find it and then, of course, fall helplessly in love with me. She walked in a few minutes later, took off her coat, and sat down to see what her classmate had given her. She removed the lid and a grin appeared. I was in! She stealthily scanned the room to see if anyone was watching her and our eyes met. This was it! I knew it would be wonderful between us from here on out. And then he came in.

He was the kid no one wanted to be partners with on a project. He had a silly way about making himself stand out in a crowd that I appalled. He was constantly the butt of jokes around the lunch table for being the short round kid in class and wearing a yamaka in third grade doesn't help you keep a low profile. It wasn't that he was Jewish that was the turn off. It was his knowledge of the presidents. He had for some reason memorized all the presidents and their terms and in random points in any conversation, he would cut you off and challenge you to a presidential trivia contest. Who wants anything to do with that?

On this particular Valentine's day, after I had thought everything was going according to plan, he walks in with a cut out spiderman card for her taped to an entire bag of Kisses. He handed her the bag and that was all she wrote. A few weeks after that, our class was split due to teacher student ratio and I only ever saw her at recess and she never saw me again because I was, to her, invisible. Not only was I lacking in the chocolate department but apparently a vast knowledge of in depth, useless presidential facts are a must for the modern woman.

Zachary Taylor was the twelfth president and was the last president to own slaves while holding the office.


Happy Valentine's Day.