"i was madly in love with him from 12-15!"

there are always some casualties when it comes to tour...sometimes it's a musical instrument or a stage light that breaks, sometimes it's hurt feelings because someone snapped at someone else because no one has had enough sleep, and sometimes it's my ego when i say something stupid to another human being without thinking. 

this is a story of the third type of casualty. 

we were about 4 days into the tour and my coworker and i were sitting in catering having lunch. we were eating a bit later than everyone else because our morning duties had run long so we were the only ones in there. apparently antonio* had been busy as well because he came in, grabbed lunch, and joined our table to chat. 

i hadn't talked much to antonio so lunch started out with polite small talk. somehow that morphed into this conversation:

antonio: oh, do you know phil joel?

me: oh my gosh yes! i was madly in love with him from 12-15! 

antonio: oh...he's one of my really good friends, we used to be in a band together. 

and then i wanted to crawl under the table and die. 

you guys, there's really no great way to recover from that. you try to be taken seriously and as an adult and then you go around telling strangers your adolescent crushes WHO HAPPEN TO BE FRIENDS WITH YOUR ADOLESCENT CRUSH.

i'm not entirely sure how we moved beyond that moment, he probably kept talking like a normal human and at some point we got to the neutral topic of donuts and then it was smooth sailing from there out. we actually talked a lot about donuts after that. actually, i could really go for a donut right now. is there ever really a bad time for donut?  

anyway, by the time tour was over we were friends and when we hugged goodbye he rested his chin on the top of my head like a big brother. i keep telling myself he forgot our first conversation though it's one of those i won't stop telling. mortifying in the moment always makes for funny later. 

xo

*definitely his real name