Crushed

So our local chapter of the Hash House Harriers actually had a run in my neighborhood yesterday. Miracles never cease. The run was nice - over the mountains, through the bushes (complete with stickers and pricks), across the river (several times), through the paintball war zone, past a farmer with a gun who did not think having beer-toting adults run through his property was in the least bit amusing, and finally to the keg at the end. After the run I came out of retirement as general manager and led the group through the religious ceremony also known as 'down-downs' wherein we drink beer, sing silly songs, and give someone a toilet plunger to carry around on the next run. Yeah, guess who got it? After that and a few trips to the keg, a group of us headed to the local BBQ establishment for dinner.

So there I am, chortling with friends, thinking how nice it is to be in my 'hood with this motley crew, wearing wet, muddy lycra and a hideous goldenrod shirt when who should I see snarfling some BBQ in my hometown? My crush!

Our eyes locked for a moment before my friend nearly knocked me over with her buckled-over laughter at the situation. I murmurred some semblance of a hello and scurried off to the restroom to assess the situation.

Yep, even through my happily buzzed haze, I could see it was bad. Goldenrod is hideous in strawberry blondes. And the lycra! Good grief, who wears wet lycra to dinner? And my hair - imagine Cousin Itt without leave-in conditioner. I headed back inside to get in line, deliberately avoiding eye contact and feigning small talk with my fellow drunken revellers - one of whom was over talking to my crush giving him a massage as he sat across the table from his wife and child. The nerve! Touching my crush!

After dinner, when our raucous crew was leaving, peer pressure forced me go back into the BBQ place under the guise of introducing two fellow runner-drinker-lawyers to the crush to harass the hapless crush a bit. It was awkward but not as awkward as it could have been if I'd had my toilet plunger in hand.

In the end, I smiled all the way home as I relived the hilarity of it all. You see, the really fun thing about a crush when you're an adult is that it renders a normally gregarious and witty person (that would be me) completely speechless, dumbfounded, and questioning why you hadn't gone home to change and primp before going to the restaurant lest the elusive crush show up at your local BBQ establishment on a Sunday night out for dinner with his family. Not much can do that to an adult after living a bit and you've got to savor the silly little moments when you can. After all, anything that can defeat steadfast ration for a fleeting second is worth some contemplation.

And don't worry, it's not that I'll ever act on my crush. It's just that it's so darned fun having one. The element of surprise is one of the best parts of the crush: you don't wait to see the crush, you don't even ever anticipate it, but when it happens it leaves you in a schoolgirl-waiting-to-be-asked-to-the-prom-by-Johnny-the-football-captain-oh-my-god-he-just-looked-at-me-I-may-puke kind of way. You know you're never going to the prom with Johnny (because he's with that cheerleader you don't like), but you still like to think about it.

So here's to crushes, wet lycra, and being rendered speechless at The Oak Pit.