(Not) Skating in high school

When I was in high school, I had a locker that was three doors down from a girl who I thought was the hottest girl in the school. Her name was Irene and it was the typical nerd and cute girl scenario - she was super friendly and polite and not interested in me at all, and I was drooly and stuttery and trying to get into all of her classes (not really).

She hung out with a completely different crowd than me, a group of kids from town who were into skateboarding. All the boys wore their hair the same way, in what my friends called “half-dos.” One half of their heads were shaved and the other half was long. Eventually, one fellow got cancer and everyone shaved their heads to support him.

Anyway, Irene was so only into skateboard dudes that she proclaimed it via a killer t-shirt that depressed me every time I saw it. Like a grave marker on my grade ten love life, It featured a black and white comic book drawing (she had me at comic book), a woman holding her cheeks with her mouth open, and exclaiming,

“Oh my god, my boyfriend can’t skate!”

Because of the cruel nature of the universe, our lockers stayed the same distance apart for the rest of our high school careers and we became fairly good friends. I watched her and her pals hang out and wished I could be part of that gaggle of gawkers.

Instead, I was a yammering weirdo who was interested in skating and Irene, who because of my nervous nature and lack of paved or concrete surfaces, could have neither.