By Sam Bloomquist
Mr. Bennett,
I know my actions seem outrageous, but I hope you’ll see my perspective as you settle your gigantic body into your overused couch to read this plea. So add a little bit more “cream” into the coffee you are sipping while your wife is upstairs chatting with her former high school sweetheart who wants to “reconnect” on Facebook and hear me out on this one.
I cannot sleep without thinking of her smile easing me into a dream. I was hooked from the moment I saw her, my mind shaken. When and where would I see her next? I just wanted to be near her at any time of the day. I roamed the halls of this high school, hoping I’d catch her elegantly sauntering around the corner into the cafeteria. We’re two different people and I knew it would never be something completely real. But I was addicted, my eyes frantically twitching, hoping to catch her in their glance. My hands shook every time they even came but a fingertip length away from hers. Sometimes I look in the mirror and wonder why it had to be this one, at this time in my life, with this much invested.
In PE, right before lunch, I was the last one left in dodgeball. You don’t know true horror until the football team, wielding hard rubber balls, corners you in the gymnasium next to the pile of vomit graciously donated by Fat Tom. It was then that I realized how lucky I was to be alive. I don’t know if you’ve ever had an experience like this Mr. Bennett, but it makes you want to take the risks in your life that you’ve been waiting to take. I decided to take that risk. So I sit here in detention explaining to you, Principal Bennet, why I was acting the way I was in the cafeteria today.
As you know by now, I am caught up in the feelings I have for a woman, not a girl. A woman I see everyday at lunch. The same woman I look at once a day right in the eyes and hope what she says even a few words to me. Peggy. Peggy. PEGGY. There’s something in the way that woman moves that drives my pubescent mind insane. Maybe it’s the way she scoops the supposed “mashed potatoes” and hammers them on my tray. It might be the way her furry knuckles wrap around a turkey bone as she tosses it in front of me. It could also be the delicate ring in her voice that sings, “Keep it movin’ kid. I gotta give slop to the rest of the animals.” She is the true example of beauty, elegance and the quintessence of womanhood.
The time was just after noon, or as this school likes to call it “B Lunch.” My fingers were trembling as I grabbed the porcelain tray. I passed by, not even making eye contact with Ingrid, Joyce or Ulga, because I only wanted to see Peggy. Her beautiful dark hair just begging to be released from the prison of her hairnet–an imprisonment of beauty. My feeble eyes were deprived of the opportunity to gaze upon its abundance like that of the desire of my heart. I finally landed across the buffet line from her. It was then that her lazy eye caught my gaze, and she flashed me what I believed to be a half-smirk. That did it. I just had to throw my tray aside and plant the most passionate kiss ever given in a high school cafeteria, placed so elegantly under the sensitive bristles of her mustache.
So here I stand, a broken-hearted man with a questionable understanding about the way love works, and you are separating me from the woman who holds the answers to all of my questions. You see Mr. Bennett, if you want to deprive me of my first true love, then go ahead, but there is no way to erase the passion that Peggy and I share. Though she immediately left the cafeteria and, rumor has it, is seeking an early retirement, I trust that our love will defy the odds and ultimately prevail.
Respectfully yours,
Victim of Scholastic Emotional Oppression