#DailyWings: “The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.” -Albert Einstein

Blogging From A to Z is an annual month-long challenge in which bloggers around the world are invited to write a blog post every week day for the month of April, with each day corresponding to a letter in the alphabet (26 week days = 26 letters). For this year’s A to Z challenge, my theme is personal anecdotes, or “childhood memories.”

A few days before the “A to Z” challenge actually started and while I was collecting suggestions for childhood memories for me to share, someone requested that I blog about embarrassing moments since they’re “the best.” Another person requested a story about my first crush.

Incidentally, one of my most distinct memories of childhood involves an embarrassing moment and my first (major) crush. Today, I’m killing those two birds with one stone. Enjoy!

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 In fourth grade, I took a “Like liking” to – you guessed it- the most popular guy in our class. His name was Warren, and he also happened to be the nicest boy in the class (no wonder everyone liked him). It wasn’t just that he was an A-star soccer player, or that he had dimples and pretty blue eyes and wore mousse in his chocolate brown hair like “a gentleman.” It was that he got along with everyone, and was polite to even the nerdiest, weirdest social pariah. You couldn’t help but like a guy like Warren, especially in the fourth grade.

I’d Like liked boys in my class before, but we’re talking first “major” crush here. I ended up crushing on Warren for four years. And everyone knew. Yes, I was that obvious girl who, whenever she saw Warren in the hallway or in class, would wave frantically at him, saying, “Hi Warren! How’s it going? You ready for Mrs. Grimes’s class today? Okay, see you at lunch!”

In elementary school, as I recall, you sat with your friends at lunch. Though there was a tendency to distinguish between the popular kids and the “less popular” kids, cliques didn’t quite exist yet and couldn’t be a barrier to friendships between kids who were seemingly “different” from one another.

Thanks to the lucky randomization of assigned seats, I got to sit with Warren at lunch that year. And that’s when we really bonded. We played footsie and shared crackers and made jokes. We three — Warren, I and Hakeem, a guy with corn rows who’d been assigned to sit next to us — dominated the end of that lunch table. We were our own diverse version of The Lunch Bunch.

One day, The Lunch Bunch was enjoying each other’s company when I experienced what is probably the biggest nightmare of every single fourth grader. Hakeem and Warren were both sitting across from me — Hakeem in a faded blue shirt, and Warren in his signature Adidas green soccer jacket.

I don’t remember what I was eating — maybe a sandwich? — but it must have been sticky or fibrous because, suddenly, I got that horrible, no good, very bad feeling you get in your esophagus when you’ve taken too big of a bite and swallowed and the food refuses go down. My stomach lurched. I took a gulp of water, which turned out to be a mistake because, seconds later, all of that food and water came right back up and a wet mixture escaped my mouth and dribbled down onto the floor.

Besides that horrible splat of puke, I’d caught most of it in my mouth, thinking, NO! You will NOT throw up in front of Warren! even though I just had. With stunned faces, Hakeem and Warren stared at me as I scrambled up from my seat. Hakeem said something like, “Dude, you okay?” I quickly reassured them with an, Mm mm mmm! before running out of the cafeteria and spitting the rest of the vomit out into a nearby water fountain.

I can’t describe the humiliation I felt when I walked back to my class’s lunch table a few minutes later, having cleaned up and notified a custodian about the mess I’d made. If an xoJane for fourth graders had existed back then, I would’ve had an article published on the homepage titled, “IT HAPPENED TO ME: I Threw Up In Front Of My Crush.”

Upon my return, Hakeem and Warren had gingerly removed their feet from underneath the lunch table and were inspecting the leftover vomit. Hakeem looked especially disgusted. He said, just as I was sitting back down, “Dude, man, I’m serious! It looks like thoe-up.”

“No, no, it’s probably like water or something.” Warren avoided my eyes when he said that, his face pink. He was embarrassed for me.

“Hi, guys…” I said.

~ ~ ~

Unfortunately, that’s all I remember of that memory. I don’t recall what happened right after, but I do believe that event marked the point in my elementary school life when Warren stopped playing footsie with me. I guess I can’t blame him, considering what was under our feet.

I’ll let the curtains close now before disclosing any other embarrassing moments. That’s enough for this week, eh? How is “April A to Z” going for you so far?

Thanks to Heather & Tim for requesting “embarrassing moments,” and thanks to Chuck Allen for suggesting “first crush”!

Photo Credit: Melissa, aka buzzymelibee