Of playgrounds, erasers, love gone wrong.

I was reading something earlier today about love letters and the first one this person wrote. It reminded me of my first love eraser.

His name was Wally. And I was head over heels in love with him. He had this cute little crew cut and walked with a spring in his step. I think he was the first guy I ever saw "strut." Every girl wanted to belong to Wally. And he knew it. He actually had a list - the top five girls in his life each week. Something like the New York Times weekly bestseller list. And all of us wanted to be #1. If only for a day!! You could always tell when someone held the coveted #1 spot because she'd be strutting, too.

Well, I wanted Wally to know how much I loved him. I just knew that once he found out he would abandon all the other girls and rush to my side. Of course, I couldn't just come out and tell him! That would be mortifying. So I came up with a brilliant plan. There were these three other girls that I hung out with. Can't remember any of their names anymore, but we were totally cool. We'd link arms on the playground and walk around singing "We walk straight. We walk straight." Anyone who got in our path was knocked down. Now, just to be clear - we didn't actually ever knock anyone down, but we wanted the other kids to THINK we would! Yup, we were that cool.

Anyway, one of the girls - I'll call her Lynette because I think that's close - agreed to help me with my Wally Forever plan. I had a gum eraser that was still fairly new. So I wrote on both sides of it "I love Wally!!" Lynette was going to pretend she found it in the playground, run up to Wally with it and tell him it was mine. You know, like the school gossip letting him in on a special secret.

The next day we took our places. I was coyly sitting on the swings, just watching the clouds. Lynette waited for Wally to be alone and then she went up to him and gave him the eraser. My heart was pounding. Would he also profess his love for me? Would he propose? Would I be #1 on his list forever? Now my hands were getting sweaty and I was close to throwing up from the anxiety. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lynette go to the other end of the playground. Then I saw Wally strutting towards me. Oh, god, oh, god, oh, god. He walked up to me, I pretended to be surprised to see him standing there. He handed me the eraser and said "Here, you dropped this" and went on his merry way! I snatched it out of his hand, got off the swing (hey, at least I didn't fall off!), and galloped over to the rest of my "gang." Mortified and still single.

Tough day for a 12 year-old.

By the way, I saw Wally again about 10 years later. He hadn't gotten any taller than he was in 6th grade, he was bald, quite fat, and worked at a 7-11. Oh, but he still had that strut.

When was the first time you professed your love?