"Stuart kissed me today," I pronounced. Cheeks pinking slightly at the confession. Wide eyes sparkling with unabashed glee.
I was seven. And he had. A sweet little peck on the lips, while we were lined up to head in from recess.
My mother set down her fork, head slightly atilt. My father cleared his throat. Parentally speaking, how were they supposed to react to this news?
Step 1: Ixnay any further sleepovers at Stuart’s house.
Step 2: Enroll their precocious baby girl in some etiquette classes, where she will hopefully learn a thing or two about appropriate dinner conversation.
If they had only known this was to be the peak of my boy-meets-girl prowess, they might have relished the landmark moment a bit.
Most years, I concoct highly elaborate April Fool’s Day tomfoolery, for the sake of my own entertainment. One such year’s tear-stricken phone call to my mother, alerting her of my horrific ankle injury on an abandoned, out-of-reach trail, had my entire family scrambling to figure out how to get an emergency helicopter to my essentially unknown location. (In reality, I was on the beach in Hermosa. My phone may or may not have cut out mid-folly. Forgiveness was hard to come by for a few months.)
This year, I decided to keep it simple. A few clicks of the mouse, and my Facebook status shined as, “In a Relationship”. One of my acquaintances recently made a similar change, her post eliciting a bevy of ‘likes’ and congratulatory comments: “Who is he?!” “I’m SO happy for you!!” “Pictures! Pictures!” “I can’t wait to meet him!!” “Is he coming for Easter?!”
I sat back and awaited the laudatory remarks.
Zero. There were no such responses. Sure, my post received comments and likes…but not a single one of my 1,821 FB friends bought it for a second. One shimmering soul contacted me via text message to find out who I deigned to dine with on a more frequent occasion. He shall be known as my favorite person in the world from this point on.
My sister’s comment that it was, ‘The best April Fool’s joke she’d seen yet,’ got plenty of play. Awesome. The biggest joke of the day was that I somehow managed to wrangle up a steady plus-one.
It is literally more believable that I would be dying on top of a mountain than that I’d actually have a boyfriend.
Good to know. I wonder if Stuart’s still single…