- When I was in college, I had a crush on a guy who lived next door to me.
- He had a car he was always taking care of, and my friend thought we should steal the gas cap.
When I was a sophomore in college, I had a crush on a guy in the frat house next door. My crush was often outside tending to his prized possession — an orange, 1980 VW Rabbit. I had tried attracting his attention on a number of occasions but wasn't getting anywhere.
My roommate claimed she had a brilliant scheme to get my crush's attention. On the next sunny day, as my crush tinkered with his beloved Rabbit, I approached him while my roommate skulked around the car. The next thing I knew, she had grabbed the gas cap — it was the '80s, so gas caps unscrewed off the car — and lobbed it at me.
Stealing the gas cap definitely got my crush's attention, but not in a good way. He ran toward me — I held it up, teasing — and then tossed it back to my roommate, who then threw it back to me. This went on for a few minutes while my crush seethed in frustration.
"Give me back my gas cap!"
"I'll give it back this next time," I thought to myself, seeing the plan was not quite going as expected. I still had high hopes that we'd laugh it off together later.
"Back, back," my roommate interrupted my reverie, motioning for me to back up for a long pass.
As I jogged backward and uphill, I stumbled and looked up just as the gas cap smashed me on the forehead, knocking me flat. I was out for a few seconds but came to, hearing my roommate screaming: "She's bleeding — we've got to get her to the ER."
I ended up with a concussion
I touched my head, and I was covered in blood. Lifting me like a sack of potatoes, my crush threw me into the back seat of the Rabbit and peeled off for the ER. Given that I was hovering in and out of consciousness, I wasn't able to savor the fact my crush had held me for all of 90 seconds.
"I've got the gas cap," my roommate turned around at one point, showing me the bloody weapon, "just in case the doctors want to see it."
At this point, my crush erupted, "She's bleeding all over my back seat — is that going to come out?"
Mercifully, I passed out again, waking up as we staggered into the ER. My "crush" high-tailed it out of there — probably directly to a car wash.
"So, let me get this straight," the surgeon asked as he cleaned my wound, "a gas cap exploded and hit you on the head?"
"No, no," my roommate explained. "I threw it at her." The surgeon turned to me, still perplexed.
"We were playing keep-away," I explained.
"To impress a boy," my roommate helpfully added.
"Ah, got it," the surgeon said. "And did you?" he asked as he completed the suturing and handed me an ice pack for my black eye.
"I would say we made a lasting impression on him," my roommate said carefully.
The truth was my blood ruined my crush's car — the stains never came out, despite continued scrubbing. Worse, after the impact with my head, the gas cap never fit back into the car properly, so my crush had to duct tape the gas panel shut.
Perhaps worst of all, while my injuries finally healed, my "former" crush made sure to give me a wide berth around campus. Given his less-than-romantic reaction to my injury, it was probably for the best.