house, my mom took me grocery shopping with her to Straub’s. Quickly ditching her and the godforsaken job of “cart-pusher,” I made my way to the cold beverage aisle, hoping to get lucky. I did a quick scan and saw only familiar faces: Dad’s, Frosties, Root 66, even Berghoffs. It was an expected bummer, but I still began the selection process reluctantly. I was in the middle of a mental taste test between Point and Barrel Brothers when three giggling, drop-dead cute girls from my grade school stumbled into the aisle. At this point in my bottle collecting career, I wasn’t all that boastful about it. I had told a couple of close friends, who had indifferent reactions to the news. My dad had actually told some of his friends as well, which was fine by me because I have always enjoyed entering conversations with adults that start with them saying, “What’s this I hear about...” Outside of those two groups I was hesitant to even mention it, for fear of negative judgment. I was planning on announcing my new passion to the public on my own terms. But then out of all the beverage aisles in all the grocery stores in the greater St. Louis area, these girls came strolling into mine. I
knew who they were, just as they knew who I was, but I had never really talked to any of them outside of asking to borrow pencils in math class. I was really nervous and stood staring blankly for several seconds. Naturally, though my body and brain were both frozen, my sweat glands were working beautifully. It took the girls a moment to recognize my presence, and when they did, the awkwardness rivaled any season premiere of The Bachelor. “Oh, uh hey, Rob, what’s up?” said Brooklyn in a tone that I interpreted as cautiously friendly. “Nothing, I’m here with my mom,” I responded, cracking what had to have been the goofiest smile of my adolescent life. “Where is she?” asked Marisa in a kind of friendly, kind of overly inquisitive tone of voice. I was completely blind-sided by this question, even though drawing by Jack Milford I had put it on a tee for her. “She’s somewhere around here—you know how they wander,” I said, not believing the quickness or wittiness of my response. Kate laughed audibly, and the other two exchanged subtle looks of pleasant surprise, as I congratulated myself on pulling off the biggest miracle (making a girl laugh) since 1980. I wasn’t in the clear yet, though.
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