SOS - Can I Die Now?

Don't worry, I'm not getting all suicidal on you. This is a Soap Opera Sunday post...

High school was not a real fun time for me. Honestly I have no idea why, but I wasn't popular and I was probably too smart for my own good. I think somewhere along the way I started being less outgoing because it was just less painful that way. (unfortunately, yes, it still seems people act that way)

This story takes place during my sophomore year...

The church I went to was roughly affiliated with a Boys Ranch. A Christian place for boys who had for one reason or another been separated from their families and were supposed to be getting their lives back together. (yeah, one of my best friends is married to one of these guys and we won't even say how crazy I think he is - makes my blood boil thinking about - but that's a story for another day)

These boys all lived in family groups with group parents who rotated out every week. So every week they showed up at the parents' church, which on odd weeks happened to be mine.

This is how I became acquainted with Ryan.

Ryan had a huge crush on me.

Ryan also had no people skills and very little common sense. He would say whatever came to mind with no thought to the consequences. He was a self-proclaimed "Jesus Freak" who went around telling people that he had slept with girls and all sorts of other things that fell under the category of TMI.

Let's just say that every Sunday Ryan was going to be at my church I would try my hardest to wedge myself into a pew with a group of friends so that there was absolutely no room left over... otherwise I'd be sitting by Ryan. This is not to say that sometimes he didn't try to sit by me even when I was already touching thighs with the people on either side of me!

Ryan was also in my sophomore history class. With my track coach as the teacher. Track coaches, I have learned, are sometimes not the greatest teachers. This teacher, on occasion, didn't really want to conduct class. He had a school photo of himself that he had cut out the head and thumb tacked to the end of a pencil. He called it Slappy. He would also sometimes make the filmstrips "jump" or "ride" across the screen for better effects on still pictures. He was that great of a teacher... (he was also proud of the fact that he got his hair cut with a FlowBee!)

But I'm getting off track. (ha, I crack myself up, I'm so witty!)

So one day "everyone" in class decided that they didn't really want to have history class and were going to try to get the teacher off track. He was pretty agreeable to the situation and so we tried to ask him all the random questions about himself we could. But there is a limit to what you will ask and what a teacher will tell you about himself (at least he had limits...)

He said, "Well, I guess we'll just have to go back to history". Everyone protested and someone came up with the 'great idea" of asking one of the students questions about himself.

And who did they pick?

You guessed it.

Ryan.

Ryan gets to sit up in front, on the teacher's stool behind the podium. He is thrilled (almost) beyond words that his fellow classmates want to interview him.

(A little side note here. I believe it's roughly October and by this point in the school year Ryan has asked literally every girl in the school if they will go to Homecoming with him. He doesn't have a date.)

So by this time in history class I am most likely halfway immersed in whatever book I'm reading. (I am a bookworm to end all and routinely read a book a day while in high school - maybe that's why I wasn't so popular?)

However, I instantly snap to attention when someone asks him, "If you could go out with any girl in the school, who would it be?"

I know, before he even opens his mouth, that he is going to say my name. And I wished with all my might that a hole would magically appear under my desk so I could disappear.

Unfortunately that did not happen, he looked right at me with this sappy grin, and said my name.

Cue all heads in the classroom swiveling in my direction and snickers emanating from all the "cool" boys.

I wanted to die!

Shall we say, I didn't live that one down for quite awhile?

For more drama you can go to The Extraordinary Ordinary and read other people's Soap Operas.