Call Center Purgatory <$BlogRSDURL$>
Call Center Purgatory
Monday, April 10, 2006
  Anonymous Cog Finds Love Part II

(click the link above to start from part one)

As I started Junior High School, things changed. Due to an influx of hormones, and some real mixed messages I received while watching late night re-runs of Benny Hill, I started considering that there could more to girls than just holding hands. Sometimes I have wondered if it would not be better for society if we locked all Junior High boys in a closet until the hormone levels even out. It's such a rough time, and they just don't understand things around them. They smell, their voices are changing, they can't be reasoned with, they are just sort of sub-human for a while. I say this from the experience of having been one, a summer spent as a camp counselor, and several years teaching Sunday School.

The first positive change I remembered in Junior High was that girls started actually being my friends. I hung out with them, ate lunch with them, and learned more of their mysterious ways. I actually found myself on the receiving end of flirting from time to time, but I never figured what was the next step after that and they didn't seem to be explaining it to me. At least I actually felt more comfortable around them, but still came up just short of an actual girlfriend.

There were two strange episodes that stick out in my mind. The first involved a girl named Angela. She was a thin, waif-like creature with short black hair, big dark eyes, and again, had a slight over-bite that fascinated me. She was also very shy and rarely talked to anyone. We hadn't really talked before that, but had some of those longing looks that teen-agers can be so famous for. My dad called that look "making cow eyes".

I remember towards the end of school, we all went on a field trip for science class. We had to collect samples or plants and flowers. We were all walking through some fields that had been left fallow for a couple of years, so there were all kinds of plants. I had already found some yellow wild clover and some burdock, so that would be enough for my assignment, then I saw it. It was a large purple flower that was in between two thistles. I don't know what it was, but it was striking, like something you would buy in a florist shop. I picked it, hid it as best I could and put it in her locker when no one was looking.

She found out it was me, and thanked me sweetly. She gave me her address on the last day of school and asked me to write her during the summer. She lived a little too far away for me to ride my bike. I wrote her five or six times. I got one letter back from her, and it said "I love you.". I was ecstatic. Finally, I had a girlfriend. As soon as school started, I was sure life would be good. When she came back to school in the she was different. She avoided me, and blew me off when I tried to talk to her. I even over heard her telling people about my letters once. She moved away soon after that and I never saw her again.

The second incident was in the eighth grade. There was a girl named Mary in my Junior High, unlike Angela, she was not pretty. She had a bad complexion, greasy hair in some Dorothy Hamill style, a pear shaped figure, big ugly glasses and braces that resembled the grill of a pinto that had been totaled. I realize looks aren't everything, but she was a gossip that was mean and snotty to other people. She bragged about being a Christian, but was not even nice.

How in the world did I get involved with her? Good question. The girls that were my friends and that I ate lunch with asked me if we were an item.
"What do you mean?"
"She's telling everyone she likes you, and that you are going to ask her out."
"Ok..I really haven't talked to her much. I don't know anything about that."
They just grinned and waited until recess to run and gossip with the other girls about this. I went to a very small school, gossip was almost a lettered sport with jackets given out.

So I started thinking about it. The more I thought about it, the prettier she became in my mind, like someone was putting baby oil on the lens of my brain. I thought maybe I had been too hasty. Perhaps it was worth a try. I still had not ever got a kiss, or ever held the hand of a girl. She was a Christian, I was Christian...I decided I would give it a try, even though there was this nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach.

More tomorrow.
Thanks for reading,

AC

Anonymous Cog

Click here to read part III
 
Comments:
Been following your exploits for a while-todays brain journey was just what I needed to pick up my spirits after a long day in my own Dante's inferno. Takes me back to Jr. hi days when call centers hadn't been invented yet.(or at least I was blissfully unaware of them at the time)
 
Glad you're enjoying the series. I love writing about things other than call centers.

In the two years plus I have had this blog I have put out enough rants that its nice to write something else for a while.

I was thinking about something when I saw your comment. Would anyone have ever said in Jr. High,
"When I grow up, I want to work in a call center where the public can abuse me all day and I have to ask for permission to go to the bathroom!"

Thanks for the comment,

AC
 
Post a Comment





Exploring the mind numbing insanity and childish corporate culture of an unknown call center employee.
________________

Purgatory: A place of suffering and torment with an unknown duration. In Roman Catholic Theology-the place where the dead are purified from their sins.
________________

Email:anonymous.cog at gmail.com
________________

"One must know oneself, if this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life, and there is nothing better." -Blaise Pascal
________________

The Cog is listening to:
"Wake Up"
By Rage Against The Machine
________________

Search this site powered by FreeFind

Here's my RSS(XML Atom) feed

Visit Anonymous Cog's other site: Poverty,Politics,and Faith

Call Centre

________________

"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." -George Orwell

________________

ARCHIVES
February 2004 / March 2004 / April 2004 / May 2004 / June 2004 / July 2004 / August 2004 / September 2004 / October 2004 / November 2004 / December 2004 / January 2005 / February 2005 / March 2005 / April 2005 / May 2005 / June 2005 / July 2005 / August 2005 / September 2005 / October 2005 / November 2005 / December 2005 / January 2006 / February 2006 / March 2006 / April 2006 / May 2006 / June 2006 / July 2006 / August 2006 / September 2006 / December 2006 / August 2007 / September 2007 / September 2011 / October 2020 / August 2021 /


Powered by Blogger