His name was Eddie Klaris and when I was sixteen years old I was convinced that he was the man I would marry.
It's funny how our minds work at that age. How we really believe that we've found The One.

I'd had a borderline-obsessive crush on Eddie since I was 13 and finally he asked me to "go out with him" - which meant to be his steady girlfriend. That was the happiest day of my high school life.

I finally got him ... after three long, anxiety-ridden years. We had fooled around many times before the official "asking out" but this was different. He was going to date only me.

All of the girls in my class were jealous  of my Big Tits and I secretly loved the envy.

We did the normal high school dating thing -- group outings, light drinking, going to parties, experimenting sexually. We were both virgins and I was ready to lose my virginity to him if he wanted to.

Unfortunately, the officialness of "going out" put too much pressure on him. I happened to be a scapegoat of the popular crowd and I think this influenced his decision to end our relationship. He ended up going out with Christine, the most popular girl.

He lost his virginity to her months after we broke up. They did it at a party underneath a sleeping bag while other people were in the room making out.

I was in that room.

It was one of the worst moments of my high school days. I couldn't understand why he didn't want me. Was I too ugly? Too unpopular? Was I a bad lover? Was my hair out of place on our last date?

We continued to fool around while he was dating Christine, which led me to believe I could get him back. But for some reason he stayed with her. Perhaps it was her popularity. Or perhaps it was because he knew he could have both of us.

Funny how that works.

Whenever we were together the sex was tense. As much as I thought I loved him, I felt so much pressure to turn him on that I neglected my own pleasure. He would touch me and kiss me and my body would not respond. No matter how hard I tried to lose myself in his touch it just didn't happen.

He took Christine to the Senior Prom and called me beforehand to tell me he was asking her. "I wanted you to know first," he told me. "Thanks," I replied with false cheeriness.

I hung up the phone and cried.

After high school we kept in touch and continued to see each other through college. I invited him to my wedding five years after graduation and he came with his soon-to-be wife.

While I was talking to him at the reception I realized that he was so far from what I wanted in a life partner. He was boring and had no sense of humor.

In retrospect, he never did.

A cubiclemate of mine was playing some cherry tracks by the 80s-era supergroup Toto -- "Hold The Line," "Africa," that sort of stuff. I say "supergroup" because these were ace session guys all. And as I went on my usual scholarly asides about the band -- how they were basically the back-up band on tens and hundreds of albums coming out of L.A. from the late 70s and early 80s onward, most notably perhaps on the blockbuster Michael Jackson albums Off The Wall and Thriller -- I wanted to see if there was any mention on the web of the death of Toto's drummer, Jeff Porcaro and the curious parallel with a fictional drummer's death.

I wanted to see if there was anyone beside my immediate group of record nerds who had put two particular things together. Could we be the only people who put these two items together:

-- In This Is Spinal Tap, lead singer David St. Hubbins explains the death of their original drummer -- I don't have my concordance on me right now -- as dying "in a tragic gardening accident; and

-- The sad death of Toto's Jeff Porcaro in 1992 from a heart attack that "has been the subject of controversy: some sources say the attack was caused by an allergic reaction to garden pesticide, while others say Porcaro's heart was weakened by cocaine use. "
In other words, in a classic case of art imitating life, the drummer Porcaro died a Spinal Tap-like death -- in a tragic gardening accident.

My record nerd friends, like I said, mention this every time Toto or Jeff Porcaro or "tragic gardening accident" is mentioned. These are obsessive minds, please note, and so these things get mentioned all the time. None of my web surfing on Toto- and Porcaro-dedicated web sites has yielded this observation, which isn't so surprising. But I can't find any mention on the less-than-virtuous Tap-obsessed web sites. Curious.