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6 posts tagged relationships
History lesson
My coworker Travis recently asked me if David and I were high school sweethearts. Just moments before this question, I introduced Travis to a Design*Sponge article on Susan and William Brinson, high school sweethearts who jointly attended the Savannah College of Art and Design. Writer Amy Azzarito featured the Brinsons as “just one of those couples that creatively speak the same language.” The article is titled He Said/She Said: Designing Together because the Mr. and the Mrs. each had a chance to answer Amy’s questions about their joint projects and deeply intertwined lives.
David and I constantly recall ways that our lives were connected growing up even though, as I told Travis, we were not high school sweethearts. We also don’t speak the same language like the Brinsons. I speak liberal arts, literature and linguistics while he speaks motors, mechanics and math. This fact happens to work in my favor today because you’re about to get the “she said” version of our story, my friends. Some of these events are a factor of our long-time friendship but many more are a result of us growing up in the same small town. Since I highly doubt David will write a blog to counter my argument here, feel free to find my facts 100 percent accurate.
My first distinct memory of David is from elementary school: conger in your mind an idyllic scene of children out to recess standing near a playground. This is, of course, where my memory takes place but the circumstances were not quite so ideal.
My earliest recollection is actually of David kissing my friend Maggie on the playground. I was one of the girls who formed a circle around the couple, a term best used lightly in this case. All of the girls in the huddle held their mouths agape and eyes wide at this public (school) display of affection. I was not going out with anyone at that time, but I don’t recall being jealous of Maggie and her micro beau. Instead, I remember thinking that David was too short to be my boyfriend anyway. The belief that I need to be taller than the men I court was instilled in me by a long line of long-legged Swanson and Samuelson women and would haunt me for years to come. Luckily, time and puberty did David a few favors and he’s now a little taller than me when I wear flats. I prefer heels, but relationships are about compromise, after all.
Another memory I like to bring up with David is how we ALMOST went to prom together junior year but instead he asked one of his McDonald’s coworkers and repented later. His date proceeded to wear a Playboy bunny necklace to our signature formal event. I went with a genuinely nice guy who we both still speak with today and who I probably know better now than when we sat next to each other in chemistry class. To remedy to his faux pas, David asked me to go to senior prom 11 months in advance only to cancel the engagement because he charmed another girl into being his real girlfriend. I completely understood that he needed to go to the dance with the girl he was dating and appreciated that he found the strength to be upfront with me and discuss the issue through an intimate conversation on MSN Messenger. Somehow, even with this incredible let down, I allowed him to continue speaking to me. And I went stag to the prom.
David’s band Pyrrhic Victory also played in my garage for my 18th birthday party. The band name was inspired by a lesson on the Romans in humanities class, and I hesitantly agreed to let them perform. David had decreed like Caesar himself that I was to have a party whether I wanted one or not because the band needed an audience and my friends would do.
I had a dynamite group of girl friends in high school and the five of us usually hung out with David and his best bud. It took a 5:2 ratio to wrangle their joint machismo into order, but the effort was rewarded because David had the “good house” with a pool table, TV and dartboard in a parent-free land known as the basement. The boys must have had some other redeeming if not appealing qualities back then, but their practical jokes were perturbing. For some reason I was always the target of car wars. Thanks to David and his cronies my Corsica was Saran wrapped in the high school parking lot and slathered in sour kraut, eggs, mayo, dog food, cereal and packing peanuts on multiple occasions. On one instance my car was attacked because I canceled plans with him to go on a date. Can we say “jealousy?”
The problem with David’s technique was that I always knew who did the damage and who to call when I needed help at the car wash. My girlfriends and I, on the other hand, successfully doused the inside of David’s car with a restaurant-sized box of white rice and a nearly toxic bottle of cheap perfume without him finding out for years. We were supposedly the nice girls who would never think of doing a thing like that.
David and I weren’t always so mean to each other and did a pretty good job of entertaining ourselves in the metropolis that is Cannon Falls. Our five-year high school class reunion is coming up this month, and I can’t wait to get the scoop from David on our peers’ lives.
We must be one of many couples who have paired up since the halls of CFHS or who can still claim high school sweetheart status. Much like David and I, my friend Kates is in a relationship with one of our classmates even though the two didn’t date in high school. I guess that’s a family tradition since her parents both graduated from CFHS but also didn’t know each other when they were kiddos. Oh, now that I think about it, the same is true for my parents.
Now, let me distract you from matrimonial presumptions with this:
David sent me flowers earlier this week for no real reason other than that he still likes me despite my incessant teasing. Oh happy day!
