About Me #4: I would do anything for love

(Do you have that Meatloaf song stuck in your head yet?)

About Me #4: Regarding the grape kool-aid snorting incident...

I know you've all been eagerly awaiting this post so I'll get right to it.

I had a crush on the same guy for about ten years. His name was Kurt. He was twelve years older than me. My crush developed at a very early age; I'd say by the time I was about six. Before I was six, though, Kurt saw me in my diapers. Witnessed diapers of the dirty persuasion. Witnessed me being a dumb kid. But at the age of six, something sparked within me. I experienced what I would later learn is called a crush, a sensation or feeling I'd never felt before.
I was six. Kurt was eighteen.

It was a bit awkward.

The early days of my crush were marked with pigtails, hugs, and him hoisting me into the air and carrying me around like a sack of potatoes. I. Loved. It. Kurt and I went to the same church and while I was busy making macaroni wreaths in Sunday School, Kurt was running the sound booth. This was so dang cool to me. I would run upstairs after Sunday School to the balcony (where all the magic happened) to the sound booth. He'd be sitting there, looking cool with his gotee and headphones. He'd hoist me onto his lap and he'd let me speak into the microphone, checking the sound coming out of all the speakers. 'Twas glorious.

Kurt stuck around through college. I grew up a little. But only just a little. I eventually found myself on a church bus headed to a week-long summer retreat with the youth group. Kurt was driving the bus and all the youth were in tow. It was my birthday. I was turning thirteen. At 1:43 p.m., the exact time I was born, which also happened to be the exact time our bus pulled into the South Carolina summer camp, I let out a huge, excited scream. I was thirteen for crying out loud! The lady in our bus who was sitting next to Kurt (where I should have been) yelled at me to shut-up. I was mortified. It was then that I finally realized how big of a difference in age Kurt and I were. He was 25. I was 13. And as much as I'd imagined him being my boyfriend, I knew at that moment that it would never come to fruition.

Even though I came to this realization at the age of 13, I still spent a good 2-3 more years crushing on Kurt.

Kurt had a yellow Camaro. I don't remember what year the Camaro was, but it was a classic. Canary yellow. With racing seats. And the five-point harness seat belt. He drove me around in his yellow Camaro.

One day when I was fourteen or fifteen, after youth group (he was a youth leader), he took me, my friend Audrey, and Brad, my older brother, on a drive. I can't remember at the time where we going, but Audrey and I had big plans to dye our hair purple at the end of the night. We had an envelope of grape Kool-Aid with us in the back of the car.

We were getting close to a gas station and Kurt needed to fill up. Before we got there, though, Kurt dared me to snort the purple powder up my nose.

Did I do it? Of course I did! You would too if you were desperate to impress the guy you'd been crushing on for the last 10 years of your life. I know you would. Don't even try to deny it. My sole purpose in life at the time was trying to attract the attention of Kurt. So I snorted. And then I choked. And then the most horrid, stinging, burning sensation I had ever felt in my 14 or 15 years on this earth filled my entire head. I was close to tears. (Please consider this a Public Service Annoucement to never snort Kool-Aid.) We pulled into the gas station and I made a beeline for the bathroom.

As I was blowing purple snot out of my nose, I heard the familiar rumble of a, we'll say, 1969 Camaro. I ran outside, toilet paper still up to my nose, just in time to see the flash of yellow pulling out of the gas station, leaving me stranded with my purple, leaking nose. Apparently, Kurt (with some influence from my brother, I'm sure) thought it would be hilarious to leave me there, stranded at the gas station, purple oozing out of my nostrils. The crush pretty much fizzled out after that. (And yes, they came back to get me.)

So I guess my About Me #4 would have to be that I would do anything for love. Even snort grape kool-aid up my nose in the backseat of a muscle car.

On a side note, my affinity for Camaro's apparently remains. I love Camaros. Here is Mark's:

But I hate grape Kool-Aid.