i met kollette when i was twelve. i had decided that i would spend my summer volunteering at the museum. it was my first day there and it's safe to say that i wasn't feeling real sure of myself. afterall, i was at least a year younger than everyone else there that day. technically, only "teenagers" were allowed to volunteer, and i was still six months away from turning thirteen. i didn't know my way around the museum and was far too young to be trusted with assisting the instructors in their summer science classes. i was told to take the elevators to the administrative offices on the fourth floor where i would be stuffing envelopes.

not extremely scientific work.

i knew it was going to suck. i considered walking straight past the elevators and to the park to wait on my mother. instead, i reluctantly slumped to my post.

she wore pigtails. long, blond, curly pigtails. i knew at once that love was out of the question. it would have to be a crush. i was too young at this point to have truly felt the sting rejection can put on the heart and i gave my best shot at charm.

i sucked at charm.

kollette showed absolutely no interest. after all, i wasn't even thirteen yet. she probably was already dating guys in the tenth grade, and i wasn't terribly bulky back then. i didn't make much progress in four hours of folding, stuffing, and running envelopes through an automated licking/stamping device. alone in a room for four hours and we probably exchanged fewer than a dozen words with each other.

i would find out a couple of weeks later that kollette was the daughter of jim. jim was one of the two teachers at the museum during the summer. i got along great with greg, the other teacher, but jim was intimidating. jim was the father that you dreaded talking to the night of your first date.

jim and i would become best friends. we had to...he was my ticket.