"Christie"

When I was about nine years old, I was handed a note from a female classmate while walking back from lunch. As I looked down and saw it was, indeed addressed to myself, and more importantly, from "Christie," I immediately felt flushed, as Christie was one of the most attractive and popular girls in the class and would have never been someone I imagined "going with." As soon as I could reasonably justify a bathroom break, I fired my hand up and was mercifully excused. I hurried out the door, down the catwalk, into the boy's bathroom, bolted into the nearest stall, slamming and locking the door behind me. As I looked down, my hands shaking in still-confused excitement and anticipation, I tore the note open, and read the following, from "Christie": "I drawed this pictur cuz I love you," written in jarringly terrible handwriting. Instantly deflated, I tumbled back to Earth.

The attached illustration of what I could only imagine was meant to be a representation of myself - essentially the classic stick figure with exaggerated facial features and elongated digits, more typical of drawings of four or five-year olds, helped me connect the dots. The note was indeed from "Christie," but unfortunately not the cute, popular one. My "Christie" was an obese girl with severe learning disabilities and a ponderously strong Southern accent. I tried as hard as I possibly could to avoid her gaze when I returned to class, in shame for my hubris and true commiseration with the poor girl, though I occasionally looked up, masochistically I suppose, to catch her discomforting stare.