I Was Too Young to Know Better

When I was twelve, I suddenly realised, one day, that members of the opposite sex were attractive.

The revelation came, embarassingly, as I was watching Waterworld, and I spent the next several months having a desperate crush on Kevin Costner. It's a bit mystifying, now, but at the time he seemed like the epitome of all that was attractive in a man.

During this period, my parents and I attended an opening at the Davis Dominguez Gallery (which is owned by friends of my parents). As we walked to the gallery, we noticed a crowd of people blocking the door. There was something strangely familiar about the man in the center, something that made my heart beat faster, and my mouth go dry, but I couldn't place it. My mother, impatient with the crowd, elbowed a path, and I followed her into the gallery, still staring at the man, trying to figure out why he looked so very familiar.

"You'll never guess who was just here!" my mother's friend Candy said, inside, handing me a ginger ale.

"Who?" my mother asked, obediently.

"Kevin Costner!" Candy said, laughing. "Kevin Costner just crashed our gallery opening!"

He was in Tucson filming Tin Cup. I was less than ten feet away from the object of all of my half-understood desires.

Fortunately, ginger ale doesn't leave a stain when you spit it out, unexpectedly.

Today's bored-at-work question is: Who was your first crush? Tell me the story!