Love — February 14, 2025 – John Agliata

🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩
Pay For Play💰
Get Over You🎶
Fat-Ass Update🍑

THE DAILY UPDATE

Love is confusing. This is a lesson I learned very early on.

In first grade, a girl named Robin started hanging around me during our free time in Mrs. Winkler’s class. The details are a bit hazy, but hey, there’s about 44 years between then and today, so cut me some slack.

Robin had two long white-blond pony tails, fair skin and blue eyes. At least, that’s how I remember her. She moved away after first grade, and I’m not even sure how to spell her last name. It’s Deetcher or Deiter or Deecher or something like that, but alas, even the all-mighty Google Machine can’t do much to locate a person based on that limited information.

As a first-grade boy, I didn’t really care about gender. If you were down to play baseball or flip baseball cards or talk about baseball or smash Tonka trucks together, you were fine by me, whatever plumbing you had.

Robin was into none of those things.

What Robin was into at the time was playing with my hair, which, back then, I actually had. She would sit there while we were reading and twirl my hair, which might have seemed odd to me at the time but I was really into reading so whatever she wanted to do while I was lost in a story was fine with me.

Until …

Until my baseball playing, baseball card flipping, baseball talking, Tonka truck smashing boy friends (not to be confused with boyfriends, not that there’s anything wrong with that) started to make fun of me. Then, I told Robin to stop.

Undeterred, Robin offered me a quarter if she could play with my hair. I imagine Robin is somewhere in high finance these days. She understood The Art of the Deal long before our stupid-ass old-new-old-man president.

So did I.

I gladly accepted Robin’s quarters, spun them into something we called Indian Corn that was actually called corn nuts that actually did break your teeth when you tried to eat it. But it was salty, and my teeth were young, and a quarter was a quarter, so there you have it.

This arrangement worked great … for a while. Then one day, I got home from school and Mother Dearest asked me if I’d like a snack.

“No, I’m full,” I said.

“You’re full?” Mother Dearest questioned. She was right to do so. I rarely, if ever, was full.

“Yeah, I had a lot of Indian Corn on the bus.”

“Where’d you get Indian Corn?” Mother Dearest questioned. At that point in time, in between her blind anger rages, Mother Dearest made our school lunches so we didn’t purchase the square pizza slices and other assorted yummy cafeteria selections.

“With the money Robin gave me.”

“Why did Robin give you money?” asked Mother Dearest, apparently now the self-appointed Sherlock Holmes of Suburbia, New York.

“For playing with my hair,” I innocently responded.

Here’s the thing about kids: They are dumb. Whereas a baby zebra or a baby giraffe can walk after about two minutes of breathing air, human children are stupid for a long, long time. Put hungry cheetahs or lions after us and I imagine we’d be smarter quicker, but that’s not the world we live in … yet.

Anyway, my innocent response was met with Mother Dearest’s wide eyes. “John Michael!” (Oh shit.) “Why is Robin paying you to play with your hair?!”

It was a fair question, given the circumstances and her perspective, I see now, as a parent myself. To me at the time, however, it seemed rather pointless.

“I dunno,” I responded. “Cuz she wants to.”

“Why does she want to?” Mother Dearest inquired.

Now, today I would say it was because of my dashing good looks, amazing sense of humor, and natural charisma. But back then?

“I dunno. Cuz she’s a girl.”

You can’t argue with logic. Unless you’re Mother Dearest.

“John, you can’t take money from Robin for playing with your hair,” she said.

“I didn’t,” I replied.

“What do you mean you didn’t take money from Robin for playing with your hair? You just told me you did!”

“No I didn’t,” I retorted. “I told you she gave me money to play with my hair. I didn’t take anything.”

Perhaps I should be a little more understanding of Mother Dearest’s propensity to rage “unexpectedly.” Naaah.

“John. You can’t accept money from girls to play with your hair,” Mother Dearest sighed.

“Well boys aren’t going to want to play with my hair,” I said. “And besides, if she wants to, why can’t she?”

I thought that was an incredibly fair question. Mother Dearest ignored it.

“John Michael. No more accepting money for hair-playing.”

And thus ended the wonderful agreement Robin and I had.

I don’t think Robin was in love with me any more than any other first-grader can be in love with another first-grader. I do think that had she not moved away (to Arizona, if I recall), she would be Wifey Poo and Wifey Poo wouldn’t be Wifey Poo. Or probably not.

Like I said: Love is confusing.

Something I’m grateful for today: Stay-at-home make-a-Traeger-pizza Valentine’s Day date with Wifey Poo tonight while Boy The Younger is working at Chick-Fil-A serving up God’s Chosen Chicken.

Something I’ve (ghost)written: Unlocking Success in Insurance Technology through Strategic Partnerships

Song of the Day: I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You, by Colin Hay

Meaningful lyric from the S.O.T.D.:

Your face it dances and it haunts me
your laughter is still ringing in my ears
I still find pieces of your presence here
even after all these years

(And also …)

I drink good coffee every morning
It comes from a place that’s far away
And when I’m done I feel like talking
Without you here there is less to say

Something good from today/yesterday: A fun time coaching my basketball team.

Something I’m looking forward to in the next seven days: Seeing Shucked on Sunday

Fat-Ass Update:

Starting weight: 230.6 on 2/12/25
Goal weight (for now): 199.9
Today’s weight 228.6, (-2.0)
Fat-ass burn-off remaining: 28.7 fat-ass pounds

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Love — February 14, 2025

THE DAILY UPDATE

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