you don't know that

Lists that make work go by faster:


The Electric Prunes Sold to the highest bidder
Small faces Rene
Les Fleur de lys Tick Tock


Lists that don't make work go by faster:


four hours typing data in a spreadsheet
40 minutes stapling papers
20 minutes filling mailboxes


Tonight as I was playing chauffeur to my mom I saw this boy––well, man, now––I had a crush on in junior high. Guys, I was in love. He was tall, tan, skinny, with large tortured looking eyes, was three years older, and had just gotten back from rehab or something. He sometimes had to leave study hall early to be tested for drugs which would always make him nervous for some reason.


My high school and Jr. High were in the same building and some classes, like study hall were filled with grades 7-12. This is how 16 year old him and 13 year old me came to be sitting at the same table together. He would listen to his portable cd player and one day I asked him what he was listening to. "You wouldn't like it," he said.


"You don't know that," I said.


And so it began, we'd scoot next to each other, he'd place his headphones on me because I was so nervous about being so close to him that I couldn't figure out how to do it on my own? And I'd listen to his music. You know, stuff like Mudvayne.


It never got further than that because one day the boy who sat across from us––who probably hated this situation (1) because he'd actually try to study and (2) I'm under the impression that he had a crush on me as he asked me to just about every school dance and I actually went with him a few times because I thought "what's the harm?" even though I didn't know how to keep a conversation going with him and it was always really awkward and I was just a real jerk––said something snide about Crush Boy's drug problems, and me, being as extremely nervous as I always was around him, tittered a bit. He turned his tortured eyes on me, took back his Mudvayne and headphones and never talked to me again. 


I've just been remember silly stories like this, from my past, this year at home. On the 31st it will be a year here. I'll never know what to make of this place.