Talking in Code

Every since I can remember, my friends and I have given guys we were interested in code names.  It's how we refer to them in conversation with one another and heck, it's how we talk about them when we're standing five feet away, too.

Sometimes these names mirrored their physical attributes, they could deal with his occupation and other times it could be the guy's physical location. Then there are the code names about his vehicle or how we met and maybe even music that he likes.

Needless to say, my friends and I have given a lot of guys alternate names.  But the hard part about code names was making sure the subjects never found out.  To my random friends and I, this came pretty easy since we were off the wall about everything. 

I believe it started in elementary school with my first real crush - he was a 2nd grader and my little first grade freckled self was just as smitten with him as it knew how to be.  Due to the fact that it was 1992, we called him Aladdin.

Then in sixth grade a friend of mine asked me to dance at one of those silly middle school dances during one of those awkward Backstreet Boys or N'Sync slow songs.  Porky was the tallest boy my age and for some reason, he felt compelled to kiss me on the cheek.

Two years later another a dark haired boy caught my eye in science; we named him Chocolate because he had the prettiest dark brown eyes.

During my jock stage in high school there was a baseball player who was really quite shy and in several of my classes.  If memory serves me correctly, he became known as simply Baseball.  I know, we're so original.

Still in the jock stage of high school, a few football players caught my attention and never even knew I existed except when they needed help with Chemistry.  Hilldo, Dinosaur and FFA were all friends and all, very much, the objects of my affection for varying lengths of time.

Right around high school graduation, I began to date the only guy I don't remember giving a nickname to - Joe.  A couple years later there was a string of various dead ends and heartbreaks that takes me right up to today, some being brief lapses in judgment and a couple completely destroying me.  There was DH, Cart Pusher, FF, Britches, Army, Two Pump, Lox, Pooh, Mazda, McCreeper, Mustache Man, LT, Jose, BD and String Along, just to name a few.

Oddly enough, I still talk to a few of them, which is actually what prompted today's post. I ran into one of my high school jocks, Dinosaur, at a local business in Mayberry the other day.  He still had no real idea I ever existed outside of Calculus but nonetheless he greeted me when I quietly said "good afternoon" to him.

It's hard to believe that he's the one I stayed so hung up on in high school, always being jealous of any girl who boasted dating him and always wishing, hoping and praying that it would be me one day.  As he walked out the door and to his truck, a Garth Brooks song came to my mind and I had to thank God for unanswered prayers.

Well, unanswered prayers and an active imagination.  Sometimes these code names don't come so easily.