I always feel like, somebody’s watching me…
If I am friends with you from high school, you have heard these stories ad nauseam. I have told the following stories so many times, I don’t know why I am repeating them. Ultimately, I find them really funny. A couple of times a year, I meet up with some friends from high school. The last few times we have met, we have gone to a local bar for their Thursday Night Trivia. We catch up on whatever is going on, and I always seem to repeat these stories. I’m sure they are sick of them. Anytime I run into someone from high school, I am bound to repeat myself. I may come across as a bit of an ass after you read this, but I can assure you that I truly am not. I can hear a few of my friends already laughing at that last sentence. They don’t need to read any more to think that I am an ass. I was simply a young, shy, and awkward high school kid who didn’t have a real keen understanding of the ladies. It was never my intention to be cruel and dismissive. I’m sure the subject of this blog post and her friends would feel differently.
At the risk of the person I am writing about actually reading this, or any of her friends reading this, I am going to refer to her as Phoebe. We didn’t have anyone named that in my class, so I feel safe in using that as her alias.
Officially, the start of everything was in the fall of 1984. It was my freshman year of high school. I have suspicions that it started in eighth grade religious education class, but I have never been able to confirm that, not that I really want to. I was the type of kid that seemed to get along with everyone. It didn’t matter what group someone was in, I made friends with them. For a lot of kids, starting high school is a very difficult thing. I was lucky. I played football all throughout high school. As a freshman, this was great. We had double sessions two or three weeks before school even started. I had a head start in making new friends. We must have had 50 or so kids come out for football. When the first day of class rolled around, I had already made a bunch of new friends. The first day as a high school freshman didn’t feel as intimidating as I thought.
As for making friends with girls, I was not as good. I was really shy. I have been accused of giving off a sense of being mean and unfriendly. My wife will be the first to admit this. She thought I was an ass until she actually met and started hanging out with me. My idea of being friends with girls was saying hi to them and talking to whomever was near my locker. That was about it. It was probably some form of social phobia or anxiety. I still feel it today. Not nearly as bad, but I do not do well in certain social situations. That is a tale for another day…As I have discovered later in life, there were a couple of girls who had a crush on me. I was oblivious to it all. I had no idea, except for one: Phoebe.
If I am remembering correctly, every year there was a fundraiser leading up to Homecoming. One of the 4 classes would sponsor an event to help defray some of the costs of the Homecoming Dance. A popular event was sending flowers to someone during class. There was a table set up outside the lunchroom and people could buy a carnation and send it to their boyfriend or girlfriend or their secret crush. I have no idea how much it cost, because I never bought one. I am guessing it was a couple of dollars per flower. Once the distribution day came, a class representative would come by at the end of class to pass out flowers to whomever was to receive one. They would call out a name, and that person would come up and get their flower. Most people were excited when their name got called. My name got called. I was not excited. I was embarrassed. Who the hell was sending me a flower? It was sent anonymously, so I had no clue. This happened several times throughout the day. All from an anonymous person. I can’t remember what I did with the flowers. I think I just threw them in the garbage after I got them. I guess that was a dick move, but I didn’t want to carry a bunch of flowers with me to football practice after school. After a day or two, I found out who sent them. It was Phoebe. I got a tongue lashing from a couple of her friends. They indeed thought I was a dick for not being appreciative of Phoebe’s flowers. I tried to simply explain that I was not interested and that I would like to be left alone. They thought I was an arrogant ass and gave me dirty looks whenever they passed me in the halls. I will fully admit to being an ass at times, but the arrogant part, not so much. I’m actually the complete opposite of arrogant. I have low self-esteem. Trying to get that message across to a bunch of freshman girls wasn’t so easy. I don’t think Phoebe thought I was as big of an ass as her friends did, because all throughout high school whenever there was a flower fundraiser, I got flowers from Phoebe. She never got the hint that I wasn’t interested. I wouldn’t be shocked if one day the FTD truck pulled up to my house with a bunch of carnations from Phoebe. I might have to get an order of protection if that happens…
As I have mentioned before, my dad was a Chicago police officer. Because of that, I could never tell people what my dad did for a living until I was 16. Chicago employees must live within the city limits. We did not. Because of that, we had an unlisted phone number. Very few people had our number. I am pretty sure this next story occurred during my sophomore year of high school. One evening, my mom got a phone call. I was either in the kitchen or family room listening to her end of the conversation. Whatever room my mom was in, I was in the next one. My interest was piqued because I assumed it was about me. All I heard is, “I don’t know. I guess he just doesn’t want to, sir. I’m sorry, I don’t know what to tell you. She will have to get over it.” This went on for a few minutes. After the phone call ended, I asked my mom who she was talking to. “Phoebe’s father.” “Phoebe’s dad? What did he want and how did he get our number?” “He said Phoebe wants to go to Homecoming with you and wants to know why you won’t take her? He wants to know what is wrong with her that you won’t ask her?” My mom’s end of the conversation now made sense. He was lecturing my mom about my behavior and that his daughter deserved to go to the dance. A whole bunch of crazy talk. My mom simply told him that she was free to go to the dance, but that I didn’t want to go with his daughter. She eventually had enough of him and ended the conversation. This was a level of crazy that I had never seen before. Firstly, I was too shy to ask anyone. I wasn’t going to the dance – period. Secondly, I had no interest in Phoebe. Again, I thought my flower rejections from the prior year would have clued her in. It took a set a balls the size of Pittsburgh to make a phone call like that. I always wondered how he got our phone number. It took some effort. More effort than a normal person should have gone through to find. Did he call on his own or did she ask him to do it? I can’t think of any circumstances where my mom or dad would make that phone call. That takes a really devoted parent or a special brand of crazy. I’ll go with the latter.
I’m guessing this next story occurred around 2001. After 20 some years, my dad’s trusty Craftsman lawn mower died. It was time to buy a new one. Instead of going back to Sears and getting a new Craftsman, my dad decided he was going to look somewhere else. He was intrigued by the new home improvement store that had recently opened, so he asked me to go with him to look at new mowers. We got to the store and headed straight to the lawn and garden section. We started looking at the various models. After a short period, an employee came up to us and asked us if we needed any help. My dad said that we are in the market for a new mower and asked which one he recommended. Before he gave my dad an answer, he looked at me and said, “You went to high school with my daughter.” My mind started racing. I was trying to figure out who this guy was. My interaction with girls was fairly limited, so I was puzzled. I didn’t remember meeting anyone’s father unless they were a neighbor. I politely asked him who his daughter was. He said, “Phoebe.” At this point, I was completely creeped out. I had never met this man, I had never talked to this man before this day, and I had never even seen this man in my life, and he knew who I was. Plus, the fact that I was 31 years old and had been out of high school for 13 years made it even creepier to me. I really wanted to know how this man could recognize me when we had never even met. A person changes a lot in 13 years. I wanted to run like hell out of that store. Instead of being rude and telling this man how I really felt, I simply said, “Oh yeah, I remember her.” My dad was standing there a little confused. He got the conversation back on track to lawn mowers. This man recommended a mower and my dad ended up buying it. Not only did this man creep me out, he made a terrible recommendation. That mower was a piece of crap. I wish my dad had simply bought another Craftsman from Sears. I avoided going into that particular store for a long time. I didn’t want to have another chance encounter with this guy. As I look back, this story is so bizarre on many levels. It makes me wonder what was going on in that house that the entire family knew me when we had never interacted. I still get the chills when I think about it. Sometimes I feel like I am going to be in bed with two broken legs like James Caan in Misery. Phoebe is the Kathy Bates character that keeps me locked up in a cabin, forcing me to write blog posts about her all while telling me that she is “my number one fan.” Yikes, I just scared myself.
That leads me to my final story. Now, I have told my wife these stories for as long as we have known each other. She has told me on many occasions that I was simply being mean to Phoebe. I think she thought I was exaggerating or making this stuff up. I would tell her that Phoebe was a borderline stalker. Again, my wife thought I was being the crazy one with a big ego.
In the summer of 2013, I was the lead coordinator for our 25th high school reunion. I set up the event and sent out all the e-mails with the details leading up to the party. A couple of other people tried to track down missing classmates. It was a very simple affair. We met at a bar and drank. My kind of reunion. I was a little leery of giving out my personal e-mail and cell phone number because I knew Phoebe would be on the distribution list, but that was the price I had to pay for being the point man on this shindig. I sent out an Evite for the reunion. Phoebe was one of the first to reply. She was coming. Great. It was going to be hard to avoid her. I think we had around 50 or so out of 400 students say they were going to attend, so I was bound to interact with her. My wife and I drove separately because she knew she would have to leave early. She had been only a few months post chemo. She had breast cancer the previous summer, and the chemo took a toll on her. She got tired easily, and there was no way she was going to make it until last call. After about two hours, she was ready to leave. I started walking her to the car when Phoebe sidled up beside us. Damn it. I introduced her to my wife and we exchanged the normal pleasantries you say when you see people at a high school reunion. There was a pause, so I thought the conversation was over. I had an out. I could say “nice seeing you” and get my wife to her car. Nope. I wasn’t so lucky. Things got weird. I mean, really bizarre weird. Phoebe said to me, “You know, the one thing I most admired about you was your devotion to your faith.” My wife and I looked at each other, puzzled. Phoebe went on to say, “When we were in high school, I would always see you every Sunday at mass. You might have not seen me, but I always saw you.” Once again, I was a little creeped out. I said, “I’m not sure it was devotion. My mom made us go. We didn’t really have a choice.” Phoebe went on to say, “Well, I see you still keep the Lord in your life. I saw a picture of you, and what I am now seeing, your wife, holding a baby in church.” My wife was very confused at this point. She told Phoebe that it must have been one of the kid’s baptisms. I said, “They must have caught us on a good day because we don’t get to mass very often.” My wife and I are both Catholic. We are not the most religious people in the world, but we do adhere to a lot of the Catholic traditions such as baptisms and first communions, etc. However, it seems like we get to mass only when there is a baptism, first communion, wedding, or funeral. Phoebe went on to tell us she is divorced with no kids, what she does, and how important God is to her. She said that she teaches in a Catholic school in a suburb that is not very close to where we live. This struck a chord with me. I started thinking. How did she see a picture of us at the church where we got the kids baptized? It wasn’t the church we went to when we were in high school. It wasn’t the church where she teaches. Was she just by happenstance at the church when they put the pictures of all the babies on the bulletin board? They didn’t keep them up too long. I was starting to get paranoid that she knew more about my whereabouts than she should have. I had so many questions, but I was too afraid to ask. I don’t think I wanted to really know the truth. At this point, I had to get out of this conversation. There was a pause, so I jumped on the opportunity. I told Phoebe that my wife was tired and wanted to get home. She told my wife that it was nice meeting her. She then looked at us both and told us, “Keep Christ within you and always keep the faith.” My wife and I looked at each other and said that we would try. Now, overly religious people do not offend me. Live and let live. It’s no big deal. I respect other people’s views. That being said, I found it odd to have that conversation during a high school reunion, especially when I am half in the bag. As I heard later, the God talk dominated a lot of her conversations throughout the night.
On the way to the car, my wife said to me, “You’re right. I now believe you. That chick is bat-shit crazy. I thought you were just being really mean to a girl who had a crush on you. I see it now. She really creeped me out.” I said, “And you thought I was exaggerating. I told you so.” A day or two after the reunion, I got a friend request on Facebook from Phoebe. I politely declined the request. I made sure all the privacy settings were locked down. I didn’t want her knowing any more about my personal life than she already knows. With that, queue the Rockwell…
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