COLUMN: Ode to the red sweater boy
O red sweater boy, why are you so elusive? So mysterious? Why do you always wear a red sweater?
Readers, have you ever decided to ensnare someone on sight? For example, you are at church and a gentleman wearing a red sweater catches your eye, and you decide then and there, with the determination of a Grand Canyon pack mule, that you both will become the greatest of acquaintances? You do not know how this will happen, you do not know why this will happen, but you do know that it will certainly happen, so long as your name is Melissa K. Condie.
O red sweater boy, why are you so enigmatic? So puzzling? So appealing?
Readers, at the beginning of the semester I decided that I would get him. Get red sweater boy so fast he would not know what had gotten him. But this task, easy as it sounds, has not been so easy. Not one eensy-weensy bit. First of all, every time I have tried to talk to him after church, it has not happened. Reason? During the middle of each sacrament meeting he attends, he ups and leaves.
O red sweater boy, why are you always on the run? Do you have a urinary tract infection? Restless leg syndrome? Do you have a job with exquisitely bizarre hours?
Readers, one Sunday I was able to seize an opportunity. Truly. Before our church meeting started, I walked straightway into his presence. I knew it might be my only chance. We glided through a conversation initiated by a successful teaser creatively contrived on my part due to desperate demand. I learned his first name. I learned his hometown. Best of all, he remembered that I had given a talk and was from Texas. My talk had occurred weeks earlier, but, readers, he actually remembered who I was, giving me gallons of grand glee. Sadly, church started, we parted ways, and, as tradition would have it, he booked it right in the middle of the service.
O red sweater boy, what is your surname, so that I may Facebook stalk you? Why have I not seen you since our brief meeting? Why are you not in the ward directory? Do you remember who I am?
Readers, he has not been seen by my eyes since that fateful day. He has been missing in action for the past monthful of Sundays. But get this: Last Sunday, when I took a turn at missing one, he appeared. At least four people told me about it. Rubbed it in. Red sweater and all. (My pursuit has in no way been covert.)
O red sweater boy, are my inclinations fleeting? Are they but false infatuations? Are they only houses built upon sand? Are they crashing forms of foamy waves?
Readers, he pulled a sly, fly move on my friend last Sunday; the Sunday I was removed elsewhere. He tapped her on the shoulder, complimented her eyes, and, characteristically, withdrew from the premise. A classic hit and run.
O red sweater boy, how dare you leave without further explanation, clarification and elaboration.
Readers, I do not even know what red sweater boy looks like anymore. His appearance is a willowed wisp in my memory. All I can see in my periphery is a looming, red sweater being worn by an invisibly attractive man. What is inside the red sweater is what I do not know. It is what I seek.
O red sweater boy, all semester long I have been trying to reach you, but you are unreachable. You are an ideal of impossibility. You are a culminating representation of unattainable possession, unsolvable mystery and unquenchable curiosity.
Readers, the only way I can seem to cope with this situation is to vent my feelings through free verse in an embarrassingly public medium such as The Statesman, which, if you stop to think about it, is awfully and mortifyingly embarrassing.
O red sweater boy, are you a student? Do you read my column? Are you a bandit like the Logan Lurker? Do you wander aimlessly in this world of woe or do you flail with purpose? Are you human or are you a dancer? Do you want me to destroy your red sweater by pulling a thread as I walk away?
Readers, what am I to do?
Well, here is what you are to do: incorporate the phrase “red sweater” into daily conversation. Starting today. Red sweater may define anything (or anybody) that is mercilessly and platonically aloof.
Examples: That man is my red sweater. This is a red sweater predicament. My grad school application has gone red sweater. My future is red sweater. My life obsesses with red sweaters. Your situation sounds entirely red sweater to me.
O red sweater boy, accept this ode as a token of my vague aspirations toward our nonexistent connection. May what you stand for live on in obscure USU student discourse as a result of this column, forever and ever. Amen.
Melissa Condie is a senior majoring in music education. Comments can be left at aggietownsquare.com.