Tell Me, Mister Love

In the sixth grade, I was, not withstanding the braces, kinda hot. There's no way to describe the hotness of a sixth grader without sounding unbelievably creepy. But I was thinner and tanner but had exactly the same bosom I have today. It was more impressive then, let me tell you. And I wore short shorts.

My mom was an elementary school teacher, so my younger sister and I spent every afternoon after school hanging around her classroom or on the playground. One afternoon we were playing a half-assed game of horse when an older boy, maybe in highschool, came around. He started to talk to me. It was one of those vivid and ridiculous moments of adolescence, as if life's suddenly become a Roy Lichtenstein stereotype. He was handsome and dangerous-seeming. There were small beads of sweat on his upper lip and the faintest beginnings of a moustache. He asked me my name. I was wearing short shorts.

Annie Hall, I said. Like in the Woody Allen movie. My name's not Annie Hall. I didn't even see that movie until I was twenty three. I don't know what the hell I was thinking.

Oh. He didn't say much else and, before long, loped off toward the kickball fields.

Shit, I said. I was into swearing then. Even more than I am now. Who the fuck'd want to date a guy who's never fucking heard of Woody Allen? My sister shrugged her small shoulders before sighing and tossing me the basketball.