Mortified by Morton

It’s back to school time!!! Though I am not actually going back to school, I can’t help but reminicise at my school days and how awesome I was (actually, as you will see shortly, I was in fact, not awesome).

I remember my first day of high school like it was yesterday. I was going to be in 9th grade and my older brother was a junior. He had long been telling me stories of his popularity and charm, and coupled with his badass, royal blue 1989 Camaro (this was 1997 mind you) I felt like the coolest kid ever. No senior would be telling me that all freshmen were to attend the meeting at the pool on the roof of the school. I had picked out my outfit WEEKS before at the outlet stores in Myrtle Beach during the annual cousin beach shopping trip. Besides my cinnamon tan, I wore the whitest shorts you have ever seen in your LIFE. I definitely wasn’t in on Victoria’s Secrets at this point in my life, so I don’t even want to know what I wore underneath these gleaming shorts. I paired that with a purple and white button down tank top (whatttt?) and…brand spankin’ new purple and white kicks with white socks. I’m pretty sure I also wore a thick silver chain because thick chains have always been stylish. I.looked.good. There once was a contestant on the Bachelorette who, when asked why he should win, replied with “I look good, I smell good, I make love good.” This pretty much sums me up for my whole life, especially the first day of 9th grade.

I don’t remember much about 9th grade other than my 4.0 GPA (that’s right), Joe Devine, Derek Durst and Phillip Morton. Joe and Derek were senior football players and they had me from “are you Lee’s sister?” (it didn’t take long for me to realize my brother had been lying to me pretty much my whole life). There was a service group at school that had an initiation week whereby all involved seniors could pick an incoming member to pretty much torment and humiliate the entire week. They dressed us up, paraded us around and basically made us act like tards all day, every day for the week. Joe and Derek had gotten wind of some rhymes I had made up for them and had me sit in the middle of the floor of the school’s mall where EVERYONE congregated and shout from the rooftops my rhymes. My poems basically were as follows: Joe Devine is so fine, yeah yeah yeah and Derek Durst is not the worst, yeah yeah yeah. As you can see, I was quite the accomplished writer, even at age 14. I actually became good friends with both guys and never relied on my brother for my popularity again.

But Phillip Morton. Now HE was better than a rhyme or a cheesy love poem. He was in my brother’s circle of friends and tall and skinny. He wore ripped jeans before they were cool and rainbows every day. He was the first guy I remember ever seeing in flippy floppies year round. He also had this shaggy ‘do and these really, really blue eyes. And he drove a red bmw. So, basically, I was in love (and clearly had my standards set from a tender age). I didn’t even have to talk to him to know I was in love and he was my husband and we were going to live happily ever after. If Phillip Morton was around, Joe Devine was no longer fine and Derek Durst was definitely the worst. Shortly after my first day of being a purple people eater, I did what most normal, non-psychotic, non-horomonal 14 year old girls do: I wrote him a love letter. And I gave it to him. I caught him on the way up the stairs and what happened next is quite possibly the most romantic, least embarrassing exchange known to love poets around the world. It went like this (and this is verbatim because I have never, ever forgotten it):

Me: hi, are you Phillip Morton?
PM: yes, why?
Me: well, I have this love letter for you.
PM (not laughing AT ALL or giving me any type of weird look): from who?
Me: well, me.
PM: oh, ok. thanks.

He was gracious enough to accept the love letter. But seriously, ARE YOU PHILLIP MORTON??? I just freakin’ wrote you a LOVE LETTER and I have to ask you who you are?! I am about 100% positive he never read the letter. And I’m pretty sure he made fun of me because a few years later, when I dated the brother of one of his friends, the friend asked me had I ever written Phillip Morton a love letter. I just acted like I didn’t know who Phillip Morton was. I just had a thought. What if he had said no, he was not Phillip Morton? I honestly don’t know if my heart could have handled it.

I never received Phillip's response to my love letter. I wonder if he’s still searching for me to give it to me. I mean, after that, I pretty much went into hiding until I saw my next husband walking down the hall two days later. So Phllip, I hate to break it to you, but I'm no longer interested in you. 9 years is an awfully long time to wait to respond to someone, and I'm just not that into you anymore.