My Pathetic High School Crush

Ever have a high school crush so embarrassing, so pathetic that 18 years later, it still makes you burn with shame? Think about it. I'll give you a minute . . . Got his/her name or face in mind? Okay? Now here's mine.
My sophomore year in high school, all of my friends were in the band. I have no musical talent whatsoever, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to hang out with my friends and be able to join in with the band stories. So I was regulated to the Color Guard, which is the lowest of the low when it comes to the marching band. Band parents--in their bad jeans and ugly sweatshirts--had more respect than the Color Guard. Which seems unfair, in retrospect, since we carried the band's banner and the American flag. But I digress.
My first band activity was not nearly as glamorous as I thought it would be. Lots of yelling and tuning of instruments and ill-fitting polyester uniforms and a dozen girls twisting long hair into French braids. I mean, I didn't expect it to be groupies and vomiting and raging guitar rifts--wrong kind of band--but I didn't want to spend all that time trying to squeeze into evergreen pants a size too small and having my tender scalp mauled by an angry Jazzette assigned to control my hairmop into a braid.
Desperate for a friendly face after being growled at by my "hairdresser," I sought out my friends (any of my friends). I found a few--codenamed Flute, Clarinet, and Cara (lol)--chatting away, lounging about easily in their uniforms. Feeling terribly self-conscious and a lot like an outsider, I wandered over to them, wading through people who gave me odd glances, wondering who I was. I was almost over to them when I saw . . . him.
The world slowed down. People's voices got all murky and distorted like I was underwater. And I'm pretty sure a glowy haze surrounded him while "Dream Weaver" played in the background, ala Wayne's World.
I couldn't believe anyone that cute was in the band. In fact, I think I stared at him long enough that my eyes started to burn. Look, I was 15. I didn't know "subtle" yet. I managed to make my way over to Cara, Flute, and Clarinet, who had been joined by Bass Guitar and Saxophone. They were all more than amused by my sudden muteness.
"Who's that?" I asked, desperate to sound casual, but I knew my face was bright red and I had developed a flop sweat so severe, you could have opened a water slide on my forehead.
Smug, smirking glances were exchanged before one of them told me, "That's Snaredrum."
Forget it, I was done. It was a full-on crush. And a more one-sided crush had never been beheld in the entire history on the Brick Township Marching Dragons Band. Snaredrum couldn't stand me. In fact, I was hiding in the instrument closet while two "friends"--I put that in quotes because they were anything but--asked him what he thought of me. I believe some of the words he used were immature, obnoxious, and pathetic. Ouch. Talk about crush. That didn't stop me from being all stupid around him though.
My tenure in the marching band was short-lived due to bad grades, but since I was still friends with band members, I had a reason to hang out around them, which made it easy to catch a glimpse of Snaredrum every once and a while. At some point during my crush, Snaredrum--that poor, poor guy--went from being an average-looking 16 year old high school student to being:(yeah, that's Christian Bale in Victorian Era dress from Little Women--talk about dreamy)
Poor Snaredrum. I actually feel bad for him now. I wasn't like a stalker or anything, but I was a 15 year old with a hardcore crush (not as bad as this , but bad nonetheless).
Flash forward 18 years, I'm a grown woman with a husband and a 3 year old. I no longer have crushes on "real people"--I don't count thinking actors are foxy, everyone does that. ;) But crushing hard in high school taught me a very important lesson:
"No one's perfect--no matter what your hormones tell you--and sometimes it's better to have a silly dream than be disappointed in real life."