Totally Random Tuesday: The Unfortunate Mix Tape

Now be honest. You know you at least had a play list going for a mix tape for someone you had a crush on once upon a time... those songs on the radio that seemed to be written JUST FOR YOU OMG, that you know if you got your TTL listening to as well they'd just GET IT and totally love you back?

If you were truly obsessed, you put them together on a tape.

This was a subtle art, ironic since you weren't being subtle AT ALL. You had to carefully orchestrate the flow so that the really sappy ones weren't all clustered like a drooling puppy at one end or the other of side 2.

Or maybe you set it up just exactly like that, knowing that at least you had a margin of a chance that your intended would tire of the references to forever and love and quit listening before even getting to the big pile of obvious you left in the corner.

If you were *truly* dedicated to the project, maybe you even highlighted the parts that were REALLY significant on the lyrics sheet you so carefully printed out in tiny lettering since it had to fit in the tape case, compulsively stopping and starting and rewinding and starting again to make sure your lyric interpretations were spot on because it was 1989 and there was no internet and all you had to work with was the hot pink tape player you got for Christmas that year.

Then came the truly hard part... presenting THE TAPE.

Did you hand it over, all casual-like and sort of a "Yeah you might like these, I was bored last night", working the nonchalance of the unaffected? But then what if they thought you didn't mean any of the things you were trying to impart!?

You could slip it into their coat pocket in a coy manner, batting your eyelashes and saying "I hope you think of me later, give a listen!"... but you were not Miki Berenyi (all the boys loved her in 1990) and would probably just drool on yourself or trip on the sidewalk or something equally embarrassing.

Nope... You left it anonymously, hoping your intended would recognize your handwriting and know it was you, or like me, alternately praying he *wouldn't* know and just be happy to know someone totally loved him.

Obsessive? What exactly do you mean by that?



You know, I would give a pinky finger to have a look at that tape I left for that one guy I totally obsessed over, but maybe not because the stink of desperation (and patchouli) might just transport me back like in Somewhere In Time, and I would not want to have to be 15 again. Like, ever.