You have been warned...
* * * *
Dear Pamela,
I didn't know how to contact you, so you will have to forgive me for using such a public format to get in touch with you. It's better this way – since, in all honesty, we don't actually have anything to say to each other. I imagine you settled down, happy, with a kid or two and another on the way (I tell you, you people are breeding as if there was a biological instinct compelling you).
I'll make this letter as brief as possible.
I'm thinking of you because it's Valentine's Day, and my first kiss was on Valentine's Day, 14 years ago, half my life before, with you. You probably remember, since it was fraught with calamity and injury.
I probably shouldn't share this story, but I've already used it twice – once in a play, once in a short story – and it is a simple, innocent story.
Though, as said before, full of calamity and injury.
It was just when I was leaving your house those 14 years ago, nervous and unsure, and if I remember right – and I probably don't, due to an overactive imagination that loves self-derision – it was in your entryway that I thought, "Oh, what the hell…" and moved towards you to kiss you. Somehow, in the process of doing this, I tripped and slammed us into a wall.
First off, I hope you weren't hurt. I remember being frozen in horror, then quickly making my goodbyes and getting the hell out of there. Maybe I should have lied and blamed it on a fictional inner ear condition. Or maybe I should have made a joke like, "Baby, did the Earth just move, or was that just me?" Instead, I acted awkward, tongue-tied, and unsure.
Anyway, you dumped me. Hard.
I don't blame you. In fact, I heartily endorse this decision – in retrospect, of course – and it's the dumping that primarily occupies my attention this Valentine's Day.
You did it a day or two later, over the phone, which most people would call the coward's way out. In this situation, I disagree. On that fateful February the 14th, you didn't laugh in my face, you didn't look at me like I was freak, you didn't yell, "What the hell is wrong with you?"
You let me down easy. If Emily Post had a chapter in one of her books for dumping worthless jerks, you would have followed it perfectly.
I want to say thanks for that. I probably wouldn't have been so eager to try dating again if you had laughed in my face and I might have missed out on a few things.
I'm glad I didn't.
-- Jeremy Wickett
I didn't know how to contact you, so you will have to forgive me for using such a public format to get in touch with you. It's better this way – since, in all honesty, we don't actually have anything to say to each other. I imagine you settled down, happy, with a kid or two and another on the way (I tell you, you people are breeding as if there was a biological instinct compelling you).
I'll make this letter as brief as possible.
I'm thinking of you because it's Valentine's Day, and my first kiss was on Valentine's Day, 14 years ago, half my life before, with you. You probably remember, since it was fraught with calamity and injury.
I probably shouldn't share this story, but I've already used it twice – once in a play, once in a short story – and it is a simple, innocent story.
Though, as said before, full of calamity and injury.
It was just when I was leaving your house those 14 years ago, nervous and unsure, and if I remember right – and I probably don't, due to an overactive imagination that loves self-derision – it was in your entryway that I thought, "Oh, what the hell…" and moved towards you to kiss you. Somehow, in the process of doing this, I tripped and slammed us into a wall.
First off, I hope you weren't hurt. I remember being frozen in horror, then quickly making my goodbyes and getting the hell out of there. Maybe I should have lied and blamed it on a fictional inner ear condition. Or maybe I should have made a joke like, "Baby, did the Earth just move, or was that just me?" Instead, I acted awkward, tongue-tied, and unsure.
Anyway, you dumped me. Hard.
I don't blame you. In fact, I heartily endorse this decision – in retrospect, of course – and it's the dumping that primarily occupies my attention this Valentine's Day.
You did it a day or two later, over the phone, which most people would call the coward's way out. In this situation, I disagree. On that fateful February the 14th, you didn't laugh in my face, you didn't look at me like I was freak, you didn't yell, "What the hell is wrong with you?"
You let me down easy. If Emily Post had a chapter in one of her books for dumping worthless jerks, you would have followed it perfectly.
I want to say thanks for that. I probably wouldn't have been so eager to try dating again if you had laughed in my face and I might have missed out on a few things.
I'm glad I didn't.
-- Jeremy Wickett
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