by Dan Ryckert
Even the coworkers whom I had griefed the most seemed a bit sad. “You were a pain in the ass, but it’ll definitely be more boring without you around” was a common refrain.
After talking to everyone, I went to my desk and placed my DS and spiral notebook in my backpack. I put on my jacket and walked toward the door, giving one last wave to the room that I had spent so much time in during the last few years.
“Hey Dan!” Shawn yelled before I left. “We wanted to tell you one more thing before you left.”
He was standing near the front of the room next to the wall that served as our projection screen. With the room’s attention, he pressed a button on the remote control to power up the projector. It took a few seconds for the gigantic Sharpie penis to fade into view on the wall. Next to it were a few words.
YOU’RE NOT FIRED. FUCK YOU, DAN.
I was so used to being the guy who fucked with people. I had no suspicions of the situation being a joke on me. Everyone in the call center started laughing as I looked at Shawn and realized it was all fake. He had typed up the incredibly realistic Angela e-mail and falsified the “falsified” pledge card. I fell for it hook, line, and sinker, and felt like the biggest moron for believing it all. Shawn had gotten me back good, and I gave him credit for pulling it off so flawlessly.
I dejectedly sat back down, and started playing my games and pretending to call people again.
Weeks later, Angela would threaten to actually fire me for all the reasons she should have, and I quit before she had the chance to pull the trigger.
Three Strikes
An awful lot happened in the ten years after I graduated from Olathe East High School in 2002. I started—and miraculously completed—college, developed severe anxiety disorders, lost my virginity, advised my father against at least two dozen marriages, earned the ire and legal attention of baseball legend George Brett, and moved to Minnesota to start my dream job at Game Informer. I had changed from the socially awkward high schooler wearing wrestling shirts to a confident 28-year-old who had worked his way into a career that drew a lot of envy (while still wearing wrestling shirts on occasion). When it was time to drive back down to Kansas for my ten-year high school reunion, I relished the idea of being the guy with the coolest job there.
From the moment that a Facebook group for our graduating class announced the reunion, I imagined how the whole thing would go down. Those jerks who had always punched me in the arm would tell me all about their boring jobs at car lots or in cubicle farms, and I’d tell them that I had spent the last two weeks reviewing Borderlands 2 at work. I was sure that almost all of them would be making way more money than me, but it was a safe bet that I was having a lot more fun.
Gloating opportunities weren’t the only reason that I wanted to go to my reunion. Even if I had never been a social butterfly at Olathe East, I did have a few friends whom I’d mostly lost contact with. Bragging about my job could only take me so far. At a certain point, it’d be nice to reconnect with the handful of folks like me who had avoided parties in favor of video games and pro wrestling.
I might have decided to stay in Minneapolis for the weekend if I had done even an iota of research into the reunion plans. Two red flags were in play. One was the location. We’d all be meeting up in the heart of Kansas City’s Power & Light District, which was basically a shared courtyard area that was surrounded by bars. It was constructed shortly before I moved out of town and it wasted no time in establishing itself as the place where douchebags went to drink.
I’d be able to look past the annoying surroundings if I had good friends there to catch up with. Unfortunately, I neglected to touch base with any of them or even take a look at the confirmed guest list beforehand. If I had, I’d have noticed that none of my close high school friends—primarily Chris, Kiu, Bryan, and Afshin—were attending.
I was driving down from Minneapolis to “catch up” with a bunch of people I never even talked to back when I went to school with them. These weren’t bad people by any means. They were just people with wholly different interests than mine, and an extra ten years probably hadn’t done much to change that status.
When the day of the reunion arrived, I knew that I’d be drinking a lot. My father drove me down to the Power & Light District a bit early so that I could get a head start on the rest of my former classmates. I scanned the courtyard in an effort to find the least insufferable place where I could have a few beers. The dueling piano bar was immediately eliminated as a possibility, as was Angel’s Rock Bar—a borderline strip club featuring scantily clad women swinging from the ceiling as Poison and Mötley Crüe tracks blared.
I wasn’t familiar with every bar’s reputation, so I assumed that the country-themed place in the courtyard would be all right. It was called PBR Big Sky, which I assumed
stood for Pabst Blue Ribbon. With a modest exterior and a name based on a cheap beer, how bad could it be?
I later learned that “PBR,” in this case, stood for Professional Bull Riders. Naturally, this bar featured a mechanical bull. In my experience, a mechanical bull—despite how undeniably fun they are to ride—often served as a potent magnet for the types of people who annoyed me. Sure enough, this bar was filled to the brim with people I’d have nothing in common with. There were a lot of cowboy hats and boots, and the soundtrack consisted of songs about sexy tractors, red Solo cups, saving horses by riding cowboys, and honky-tonk badonkadonks.
Most of the commotion was centered around the bull. I just wanted to have a few drinks, so I sat myself at the bar and ordered a tall beer and a shot of whiskey. That turned into another tall beer and shot of whiskey. Eventually, I remembered that I hadn’t driven all the way from Minnesota to drink by myself while listening to what sounded like Larry the Cable Guy’s Spotify playlist. I paid up and headed over to the bar hosting the reunion.
Oh, right, I thought as soon as I walked in. Sure enough, I was instantly reminded of how much I didn’t fit in at Olathe East. This was a nice place, and everyone was wearing appropriate clothes for the occasion. All the guys had on slacks and nice shirts or suits, and I had shown up half-drunk in jeans and a Lynyrd Skynyrd t-shirt.
I wasn’t feeling dread or derision. It was just an immediate mental confirmation of what I had already expected. I saw a bunch of people who had never strayed from their old cliques in high school, and they seemed to be sticking to the script even ten years later. Most of them had never left Kansas City, so I imagined there was less “catching up” going on and more of the same old weekend routine. I hadn’t been in the Kansas City area for the last few years, so I was even more out of the loop than I had been back in high school.
Among the people there whom I had never wanted to talk to in high school were two people I very much did want to talk to. Amanda and Jessica were my two biggest crushes throughout junior high and high school, and I had completely blown my chances with each of them back then. Okay, maybe that’s inaccurate because it implies that I ever had chances to begin with. I never really had any indication that either of them had been interested in me, but I certainly did myself no favors with the fumbling ways in which I expressed how I felt about them.
This tradition dated back to fifth grade with the first girl I ever felt bold enough to express interest in. Her name was Audrey, she was gorgeous, and she was the most popular girl in class. I was fresh off of leaving Holy Trinity halfway through the year. Being in public school for the first time might have made me overestimate how much of a fresh start this would be for me. I had never been able to talk to girls back in Catholic school, so I’m not sure why I thought things would be different now. It’s not like I’d magically become some smooth operator just because I didn’t have to wear a uniform or go to church during class anymore.
Simply talking to Audrey and getting to know her was a ridiculous concept. She was a popular and pretty girl; I was the weird new kid. Considering that this dynamic made me too scared to even talk to her, I have no idea why I thought it wou
ld be a good idea to express romantic interest right out of the gate. Also, I was 11 years old and I had no idea what “romantic interest” would lead to even if things went well.
After months of thinking about telling her that I liked her, I felt like it was time to act. Zero percent of me was ready to say a single word to her. Instead, I did the only logical thing I could think of: I went to a gas station, bought a Butterfinger, wrote “from Danny Ryckert” on a note in my best cursive, and taped it to the candy bar. I put it in my backpack and prepared to make my big move the next day.
My heart was racing throughout the morning. At lunchtime, I was ready to set the plan into motion. The bell rang and our teacher assembled the class together to walk to the cafeteria. Once we were walking out of the room, I pretended I forgot my lunch card and needed to run back to get it. With no one else in the room, I took the Butterfinger out of my backpack and moved it to Audrey’s cubby. She was bound to find it right after lunch. That’s when we’d move into art class and she’d need to get her supplies from her cubby. Surely she’d find the Butterfinger, turn to face me, smile, and then we’d be kissing and dating forever and ever or something.
Lunch at this school already made me nervous thanks to my “new kid” status amid a bunch of kids who had known each other for years. Today put things on another level. My worries of not fitting in with the other kids were wholly replaced by the Butterfinger-spurred scenarios that were playing out in my mind.
I was staring directly at my watch when the lunch bell rang again, signaling for us to head back to our classrooms. Every second felt like a minute as we walked back. Audrey was fifteen feet behind me and only a couple of minutes away from finding out that I liked her.
I didn’t really have a follow-up plan in place in case things went well; I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Would she come up and talk to me right there in class? I hoped not, as that would bring too much attention to me. Ideally, she’d see the Butterfinger and then play it cool until recess or after school. Then, she’d approach me and tell me that she was happy that I liked her. She’d ask if I wanted to be her boyfriend or something, and then...kiss me? I don’t know, I had no idea how any of this was supposed to work.
I wouldn’t have to worry about any of that. I grabbed my art supplies, sat down, and watched out of the corner of my eye as she walked to her cubby. She pulled the Butterfinger out, looked at it for a minute, and then glanced over at me. I immediately put my head down. When I looked up again, she was sitting at her desk and laughing with several girls around her. She had placed the Butterfinger back into my cubby.
Audrey and I never spoke about the gesture (or anything at any point, actually). On the other hand, the boys in my class were very interested in talking about it. I was told in no uncertain terms at recess that “she’s the hottest girl in class. You’re just the new kid!” They mocked me for weeks, and my fear of expressing interest in a girl only intensified.
With one complete failure under my belt, I’m surprised that I worked up the nerve to give it another shot with a new crush a couple of years later. It didn’t involve a candy bar, but my new approach may have been even worse.
I met Amanda in sixth grade and immediately had a crush on her. Unlike with Audrey, I actually did talk to Amanda on occasion. During a project in social studies class, we were split into groups of three and asked to perform brief educational scenes. All I remember about our scene is that I played a Lithuanian man who lived in a trash can.
Amanda and I were working with a girl named Kim. As we prepared our scene, I managed to make them laugh with some of the lines I came up with. It was the first time that I can remember talking and joking comfortably with a girl. It felt great.
Things went well enough for me to think that I had a shot with Amanda. My only problem was that I had no idea how to ask her out. Directly asking a girl if she wanted to do something outside of school seemed like an impossible task. My mother encouraged me to simply give Amanda a call and ask her to a movie. This seemed reasonable and I told myself that I could handle it.
But if I asked Amanda to a movie and she said no, I didn’t think I could deal with seeing her in class afterward. Being in the same room as Audrey had been tremendously awkward for months after my Butterfinger-based wooing attempt failed. I couldn’t go through that again with Amanda.
To avoid that, I told myself that I’d ask Amanda to a movie as soon as the school year was over. That way, if she said no, there would be a three-month buffer before I had to see her again. Plus, I wouldn’t have to worry about my classmates giving me truckloads of shit. The week after school let out happened to coincide with a movie that I really wanted to see. Mission: Impossible was hitting theaters and I was going to ask Amanda to see it with me.
That was the plan. Time after time, I’d dial the first six digits of her home phone number as it was listed in the school directory. My finger would hover over the seventh number before I’d get too nervous and hang up. This was proving to be much harder than I expected.
I came up with a different plan. She lived near me in an adjacent Olathe neighborhood. What better way to ask a girl out than to just ride my bike around aimlessly in the hopes that she’d spot me, be interested in me, and ask me out herself? It was a bulletproof approach. A couple of times a week, I’d ride around the neighborhood in the hopes that I’d hear her voice call out my name. I didn’t ever even see her, let alone get asked out by her.
Calling Amanda at any point during the summer would have cleared up the question of whether she had any interest in me. Instead, I chose to do nothing for three months. August eventually came, and it was time to go back to school. It would be my first year in junior high, and I was sure that Amanda and I would share at least one of our seven classes.
We didn’t. California Trail Junior High split each grade into two pools of students who never shared classes. I was placed on the black team and she was on the gold team. This ensured that we’d never see each other during the year, outside of occasionally passing each other in the hallway. I hadn’t been able to ask her out in sixth grade, when I shared a room with her seven hours a day. What hope did I have now? Her identical twin sister was on the same team as me, but I didn’t have any of that critical “Lithuanian trash can dweller” experience with her.
I had the patience to do nothing about the situation for an entire summer, but I couldn’t imagine going another school year without figuring out whether I had a chance with Amanda. I decided to lean on my friend Jared. He shared a science class with her and maybe he’d be able to help me out.
Jared was not the brightest guy. He’d eventually become a massive stoner, but in the seventh grade he was pretty slow without any outside influence. In the days before he got really into weed and the Insane Clown Posse, we’d do things like hang out and play SimAnt or watch Die Hard on VHS. Whenever a movie came out that I wanted to see, he was usually game for it. On one occasion, I wanted to see Sgt. Bilko with Steve Martin. Jared was unsure, so I circled Siskel & Ebert’s “Two Thumbs Up!” review in the Kansas City Star ad for the movie and faxed it to him. I didn’t have a whole lot to do in the mid-‘90s.
Entrusting Jared to help me find out whether Amanda liked me was a poor idea from the start. I may not have been smooth or confident, but I was at least smarter and more lucid than he was. Walking up to Amanda in the hallway myself and saying “Hey, would you like to see a movie sometime?” would have given me way more of a chance if I’d just had the balls to do it.
Instead, I tasked Jared with asking her during their shared science class. I didn’t even want him to directly say my name. Not wanting her to pick up on who had asked him to do this, I told Jared to ask her if she liked anyone in our grade. If there’s anything girls love, it’s random classmates they barely know asking them to list every boy they might have interest in. This was bound to work.
The conversation between Jared and Amanda was set to happen during the third hour of the day. They were in their scie
nce class while I was in geometry. Waiting to meet Jared in the hallway after that hour felt just like waiting for Audrey to find the Butterfinger. After months and months of having a crush, I was hopefully about to find out if there was any interest in return.
When the bell rang and signaled the end of third hour, I sprinted to my locker. Jared and I had agreed to meet there, but he apparently didn’t have the same sense of urgency as I did. I stood by my locker for a couple of minutes and saw no sign of him. California Trail allowed us five minutes between classes, making every passing second feel like sand falling through an hourglass.
Three minutes into the passing period, I spotted Jared approaching from the other end of the hallway. It had to be him because no one else in school frequently wore a Blink-182 shirt with a skanking rabbit on it. Jared had a wallet chain, and so did the skanking rabbit on his shirt. It was a hell of a look (I’m one to talk, considering that I was probably wearing my NWO WolfPac “Bad Has Arrived, and It’s Here to Stay” shirt).
He was taking his time walking down the hall as I jumped up and down and waved my arm frantically. When he finally spotted me, his wallet chain jingled back and forth slightly more as he upgraded from slothlike speed to a sleepy saunter.
“What’d she say?” I blurted out as he approached my locker.
“Uhh…she said....”
Jared’s usually slow cadence might as well have been coming out of his mouth in slow motion.
“She said she doesn’t have a crush on anyone,” he said. “But then I asked her if she likes Dan Ryckert.”
“What?! You said my name?”
“Yeah. I said ‘Do you like Dan Ryckert?’ She said that she hasn’t really thought about you like that.”
Before I had much of a chance to be disappointed, Jared continued.
