He was actually very cute. Had that all-American appeal, you know. This picture is horrible. One of my friends said, "THIS is the guy?! He looks like a goddamn rubber chicken." I think he was then likened to canned meat. But this is all I had, stolen off the company bulletin board and returned discretely after it was scanned.

For those of you who don't, his name is Erik. I used to work with him at The Company Store. I was a lowly telephone representative and he was in - drumroll, please - Customer Service. He was 27 or 28 or something, a student, and I was in looove.

So yeah, I ended up developing a huge crush on this guy that I hardly knew. What I did know, I gleaned from company newsletters. Birthday? July 21st. Maybe the 27th, and I'm relieved that I'm not concretely sure about that anymore. He liked to watch the news, or at least, that's what he did on his breaks. Sometimes I could figure out when he'd take his and be in the same room at the same time. My heart is aflutter at the thought. Alas, he was always hanging out with that goddamn Robert and I never had the chance to speak with him. As if I would've. :)

And before I transferred to Customer Service myself, I did actually get to talk to him once in a while. "Erik, Customer Service" was enough to give me a speech impediment. And he was always super nice, so I used every nice thing he did or say to strengthen why I adored him. "Dawn, I swear, then he just said to transfer the lady over and that he'd take care of it. Isn't he the best???"

I was madly in.. crush? ... with this boy for, what, a year or so? Nearly a year, at least. During which I enlisted my friends to help me in this embarassing mission.

Once he posted a sign in the breakroom that he was selling a radar detector. I made my cousin, Dawn, call for me. The conversation went something like this:

Dawn: Hi, I saw your sign in the kitchen that you're selling a radar detector. Does it work well?
Erik: Yeah, it's saved me more than once.
Dawn: Oh, yeah, okay. Do you have a girlfriend?

To think of all the things I did, I both laugh very hard and get very embarassed at the same time. Anonymous chocolate on Valentine's? Check. Find his house by looking the address up in the phone book? Check. I won't go into any more detail, lest the statute of limitations not run on that stuff yet.

Too bad I didn't have Google at the time.

Now, of course, I do. The scary thing is that this page probably tells me more about him than I ever knew before. For example, he likes Better Off Dead. And must like to camp. Good man.
I'm glad to see he's been able to move on.. even had children.. That is one strong guy.

Hey, I was 20. What can ya do? At least he didn't wear baggy pants. :D

¶ 3:05 PM