I've Got a Crush On You

In getting back to my 'muse research' for posts, I ran across today's "Fun Holiday". September 27th is "Crush a Can Day"! This is kind of cool, and who doesn't love the exhilarating feeling of crushing a can between your fingers, or even stepping on them to 'smush' them as I enjoyed doing growing up. What an environmentally friendly way to have a little fun. Then you can take all of your crushed cans to the recycling center to give them a new life! See further below for tips on how to celebrate this little-known holiday.

This next song is called
"Arach-NO-phobia!!"
Crushing cans reminded me of course about "Crushes". I tell so many stories involving crushes I've had on others growing up, and throughout life, guys I stalked and whose lives I made a living hell. But, have I ever shared any where someone had a crush on me? If memory serves me correctly, I'll have to say... probably not often, because it was a phenomenon so rare, it ranks right up there with the 'Gooty Tarantula' (Also known as the 'Metallic Tarantula', not to be confused with the Metallica Tarantula (which of course, sleeps with one eye open, gripping YOUR pillow tight).

Well, let me think. It's really hard, because I've never had anybody come to me later in life and said "Oh my god I had SUCH a crush on you in High School", and I was never the "Molly Ringwald" character with her best friend Ducky, who silently watched as his secret crush ended up with the most popular guy in the entire school. So, what does that leave me with? Hmmm, OH WAIT OOOH OOOH!! I've GOT ONE! Let's call him "Kenny". Kenny was a relatively cool guy, who was not really good looking in the classical sense. Well, who am I kidding he wasn't really good looking in any sense. He was tall, skinny, a bit awkward looking, and there was no chemistry whatsoever (from me to him). He was a really nice guy though, and he liked me... he REALLY liked me.  I know what you're thinking. This is the classic case of perfectly good guy, 'stuck in the friend zone' by some dumb girl who took him for granted and didn't open her mind to the possibility of someone who truly liked her, and could have made an amazing boyfriend (or husband, etc).  Well, I'm here to tell you that, well... you're absolutely right. I can't deny any of the above, and I should be ashamed of myself for how I treated the Kenny situation. I just couldn't make myself like him, though. No matter how I tried. I hung out with him, we had coffee and talked late into the night at the local truck stop, sometimes with his best friend at the time, who I kind of had a tiny crush on, but that's neither here nor there.

Admittedly, I may have given him false hope at times in spending time with him. I allowed him to kiss me, gave in to his romantic overtures sometimes. I didn't do it to be cruel, and I wasn't trying to lead him on intentionally. Life is just a big confusing pile of shit sometimes, and we handle it the best way we can I think, especially when we're young and stupid.

Humor, oh yes, I was planning this as a funny story, I digress. So with all the ups and downs, with Kenny trying to win my affections, he would often beg me to go out, do something, see a movie maybe. So on one particularly boring night at home with my parents, I caved. I called him up.

"Helllooo?" he crooned with his Mississippi redneck accent.

"Hey, what are you doing?" I quacked.

"Nothing." he replied.

"Wanna go see a movie then? You been trying to get me to go to one so, let's go."

Kenny, "Hell yeah, come on, let's go!"  His exhilaration nearly singed my phone receiver. I sighed, got dressed, drove into town and picked him up at his dorm. We drove over to the little ol' local theater that had been in the town for ages, nothing by Malco standards, but growing up probably the most exciting thing we had to do in Tobie Town.

The evil rose within me, and I came up with my deliciously sadistic plan. He wanted to take me to a movie? Well I had been wanting to see "Too Wong Foo" for the longest, and by golly I got me a sucker to sock it to!  "To Wong Foo?" he asked curiously.  "Oh yes, it's a comedy, supposed to be great, you'll love it." I replied sardonically, snickering under my breath.

Now for those of you who have ever seen "To Wong Foo", you might be wondering what the big deal is, or if there is some hidden meaning or joke that you just didn't catch on to? No, not really. It's just the plain and simple fact that you don't find many regular redneck southern boys who enjoy movies about Drag Queens, and this guy was no exception. He was your average wannabe macho homophobic guy who thought that he might catch something from simply watching a gay love scene.

So the movie starts, I'm deep into the colorful storyline, and enjoying every magical cinematic moment. After some time passes, I remember to look over and check on my victim, and just as I suspected, he was gazing forward with a horrified look on his face, wide-eyed and dumbfounded. Occasionally, I could hear expletives being expelled from his mouth such as 'G***mn, what tha' hell!?' and 'Aww F**K Naww!!' Finally, as one particularly intense scene came about, he exclaimed rather loudly, "Oh my gawwd, if they Kiss, IMMA BE SICK!!"

I cozied down into my movie theater seat with a satisfied grin on my face, as my 'date' powered through the drag queen drama and survived like a champ.

I'd like to say this was the last time I 'inadvertently' tortured the hell out of the poor guy, but I kind of ended up breaking his heart a little bit by falling for his other best friend a little later in the story. Hey, it just kind of happened. We'd met once when we all visited him at his apartment. They later lived together in a house with one other roommate.

So legend: Kenny is roomate #1, therefore we'll refer to the others as roommate #2 and #3.

Roommate #3 was severely obnoxious, by the way, and thought he was God's gift to women. As well, he was a redhead, which made him extra obnoxious and unattractive to me (I had a rule against redheaded guys because my Dad was a redhead-hey don't try to understand me from back then, I don't even understand me from back then). So to shorten a longer story, roommate #2 and I dated for about three months before breaking up over some stupid b.s., and for a while, Kenny tried to console me, even though I had dated his friend. He still had his crush on me, I could tell... and he passionately compelled me to 'please just promise that I would never go out with 'blahblahblah' (a.k.a. roomate #3, I'm not giving out #2 and #3's names just to keep it clean).

So, due to some insane turn of events, roommate #3 started being really nice to me, and consoling me, offering 'heartfelt' support. He let me confide in him about my heartbreak over roomate #2, and also offered information that was intended to make me feel better in regard to the breakup between roommate #2 and myself. As you can see, he was snaking his way into a 'bond' of sorts with me, and giving me a false sense of confidence and counsel.

Seriously, he was Satan himself. So, what do I do? I go out with roommate #3, who I had sworn to God, Myself and Kenny I would never in a gazillion years do. For one, because he was despicable to me, and secondly because I considered myself being a good person to not date yet another one of his roommates. (makes a throat slicing motion at self)

Appalled with myself was an understatement. I had led Kenny down a long and winding primrose path of thorns, tormenting him, and breaking his heart not once, but twice, even though it was not on purpose, I swear. It just goes to show you that at times in our lives, especially in youth (before all of the chaos and true hard lessons mow us down with Mack trucks) that we seriously do not think of the consequences of our actions, or how said actions affect other people. We can't be bothered to think of how what we say and do could really hurt someone whose only sin was caring about us. Some of us never grow out of this, and continue to demolish every heart in our paths. I learned, though I admit I have learned many lessons the hard way.

Moral of the story? I don't know, really. You could say that it might be something like 'Open your heart, treat people the way you want to be treated, and give love a chance, even in the most unexpected places.'

But I think it's a little more like 'We can't control who we love, so next time you feel brokenhearted that you're a victim of unrequited love, just remember you've done the same thing to someone at some point, and I guess it's just coming back to you because hey, Life is just a Bitch'.

To 'To Wong Foo', thanks for Everything!
-Aunt Jackie
Sorry. The End... were you expecting something a little sweeter? Doh!! What a DRAG ;-)

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Crush a Can Day - How to Celebrate?  Start collecting cans in anticipation of this day. On the day of, host a can crushing party. Use cans to decorate your venue and serve food and beverages – just make sure they have been cleaned out thoroughly and are not rusted. Then gather around in your backyard with friends and family and get crushing. Line up those cans and go crazy on them. Hold a can crushing contest – whoever crushes the most cans gets to take all of them to the recycling center! Be very careful when you crush cans. If you are unable to crush them leave them at your closest recycling center – let the experts deal with it. Did You Know… …that recycling one tin can save enough energy to run a television for 3 hours? Read Full Article and More Here!

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