For What's Up Magazine - 2nd Grade Romance

Second grade. Back-woods east Texas town. Chandler Elementary. Mrs. Listenbee's class.

I had buck teeth and thick glasses. I wore a Bart Simpson shirt adorned with the words "Don't have a cow man" that hung down to my knees and covered my elbows. I wore this lovely item over green spandex shorts with penny loafers and orange scrunch socks. I always had my mother pull my hair into a ponytail so tight that my eyes nearly stretched over to my ears.

This beautiful girl had a crush on this boy, Bradley Peace. He had surfer blonde hair that was shaped into a mullet style that tapered off into an adorable rat tail. I loved his hair - I would dream about running my vienna-sausage-esque fingers through those 20-30 hairs that hung ever so delicately down his back.

As things stood, I would never be able to inspire love in the object of my desire, so I fantasized about what I could do to garner his attention.

Walk confidently down the hall to Room 118. Center myself in the door frame and lock eyes. He'd lose his breath as he fell into my green eyes, made spectacularly enormous by the glasses that covered them. As he reached out for me, I would jump to an aerial backward somersault, followed by a perfectly formed cartwheel, then leap into a back handspring, ending the show perfectly poised on his particle-board desk - spandex-covered legs crossed with one hand on his manly chest.

"Hi Brad."

It totally would have worked.