I invited him over for a play date when I was in grade one. He brought his toy sword and we rearranged the couches in the living room so we could jump from cushion to cushion as he “rescued me” from my sister, the evil dragon. LOL!
She used to get so mad at me because as the older sister, when my friends came over, if she wanted to join in, I would always make her play the villainess or really stale parts.
She has always been a fiery redhead so she would always catch on, and have some sort of defiant fit mid-play.
Anyway – my crush. His name was Raphael. I’m not sure I really liked much about him except for maybe I found out he liked me – and at the age of six – that’s all it really takes I guess.
I do remember him gifting me with a ring (from the dentist) and a leather belt – which I can only assume was stolen from his mom’s closet.
I remember this being quite a big deal in my Grade 1/2 split – quite the commotion when I was asked to look in my cubby at recess.
So now here’s where it gets interesting – as a kid, teeny tiny, like younger than ten – I had crushes on fictional characters – like cartoons.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was one of my favourite shows. I had the bedspread, the pj’s, a few figurines, and a sweet TMNT watch.
These colours were 90’s delightful – black background with neon greens, and oranges, and a teeny bit of pink.
My favourite ninja turtle was Raphael – with the red eye-mask bandana superhero thing.
Now why was Raphael my favourite?
Is it because he liked pizza? Naw.. they all liked pizza.
Was it his personality? The cranky, silent type… probably a bit of that.
But I think it was much more simply that my favourite colour was red.
So there was the root of my crush… my favourite colour is red, I watch TMNT, Raphael wears red, this equals my crush on him… I have a boy in my class named Raphael… he reminds me of TMNT.. and red. He must be the boy of my dreams.
I remember calling his house a few times – and then I feel like his mom called my mom and told me to stop calling. LOL!
Can you imagine being on the receiving end of a six-year-old calling your house to talk to your six-year-old… and then having to call their parents! Ha!
I have no idea what I could have been calling to talk about. Probably something about TMNT or my little sister having a poopy diaper.
That poopy diaper is part of another story where I recorded songs on my Fischer Price tape recorder and I got in trouble because I was singing about how much I hated my sister and how she loved smelling her poopy diaper as a pastime.
The next crush I can’t tie the dots to as sequentially – and yet, it was another cartoon…
Did you ever see the Robin Hood cartoon… where Robin Hood is a fox… like a literal animal fox.. and obviously as a six-year-old he was a total fox to me.
I’d like to think I was attracted to his character, but more likely it was his teeth and his tail.
where rivers are born 