In the 4th grade, I had a crush on a girl named...let's call her Debbie. By some act of fate or God or SkyNet, I picked the slip out of the hat that had Debbie's name on it for Secret Santa. I'm not sure why we were having Secret Santa in the 4th grade, since it kind of has the potential to be the most diabolical gift-related game next to that white elephant thing (the one where you literally steal people's presents like the Grinch, only you do it in front of them and don't grow a bigger heart in the end). And 4th graders don't really need help being diabolical.
I told my mom that I got the girl that I liked, and we immediately went to Wal-Mart to pick out some nice gifts for her. I feel the need to note that my mother totally took over at this point, with such a fervent need to see her son with a girl, even in the 4th grade, that she clearly was trying to either A.) ensure that he didn't become a loser for the rest of his life, B.) figure out if he was gay or not, or C.) begin satisfying her desire for grandchildren already. Possibly all three. Regardless, we ended up picking out a pair of earrings, the cubic zirconium kind made to look like the huge diamonds you'd see on one of those Housewives shows (I'm not sure how many of those there are now). And some chocolate or something too.
The next day I gave them to her, and she opened them, and the only other thing I remember is one of Debbie's friends, let's call her Mindy, running up to me at recess with chocolate in her hand, shoving her earring-laden ear in my face, and going "Look at these, hahaha! Debbie doesn't like you!"
I was pretty devastated.
And then a decade later I became a model.
Fuck you, Debbie.
