There are many things I expected to happen at a car garage. Finding out I needed new brake pads? Sure. Fixing Z-links, Bushes, nuts, I do not know what? Entirely possible. Car service? Yes, that is why I was there.
How about meeting someone who has had a primary school crush on me for more than 35 years? That one was not on my bingo card.
I was standing there waiting for the car when I noticed a gentleman looking at me rather intently. It was not in an uncomfortable way, but more in the way people look at a face they are really convinced they have seen before but can't quite place.
A few moments later he walked over.
"Forgive me if I'm wrong," he said in Luganda. "Is your name Peace?"
"Yes."
"You grew up in Entebbe?"
"Yes."
"You have a brother called Tony?" Now he had my full attention.
"Did you go to Lake Victoria Primary School?" "Did you use to go to Rocky to swim?"
Wow! Suddenly we were not in the garage anymore but children again in the 90's. We remembered Rocky. If you grew up in Entebbe in the 90's you will probably remember it too. Rocky was where half the children learned to swim and the other half got into trouble for going to the lake to learning to swim.
We would sneak off to the lakeshore with inflated car tyre tubes, spend hours in the water, then rush home and smear ourselves with bar soap or vaseline to remove the paleness, convinced that our parents would never know where we had been. They always knew because red eyes tell stories that soap and vaseline cannot erase.
We laughed about those days, about the swimming, the places kids would hang out, the jambula and mpaffu trees, sunday school at St. John's Church, and all the adventures that were exciting and reasonable when you were 8, 9, 10, 11 years old.
Then, completely out of nowhere, he smiled.
"You know... I had the biggest crush on you."
"Oh really?!" I said as I laughed.
He continued. "You were so quiet. You hardly talked to anyone. You never smiled. We all thought you were proud."
I felt slightly obliged to defend my younger self. "I wasn't proud!"
He laughed. "No... it was not the arrogance type of pride. You just respected yourself. You stayed out of trouble and did not tolerate nonsense. That made you different."
Then he said something that made me laugh even harder.
"Seeing you today brought it all back. I think I still have that crush."
Now, I don't know what the official expiry date for a childhood crush is, but appears it is longer than thirty-five years. It also made me wonder how many primary school crushes never got declared. How many boys walked home rehearsing conversations they never had. How many girls had absolutely no idea someone thought they were the most beautiful person in the classroom. How many love stories ended before they even started because everyone was twelve and terrified.
Looking back, primary school crushes were just wonderfully innocent. Nobody was trying to impress anyone. If someone liked you, it was because you shared a desk once, lent them an eraser, beat everyone in class, shared your break time snack, you protected them from bullies, or apparently, because you never smiled.
As we exchanged numbers and promised to keep in touch, I drove away smiling. I smiled because life has a delightful sense of humour. You go to a garage expecting your car to be serviced but in addition, you discover that for more than three decades, someone had quietly been living with a childhood crush on you...
...and finally found the courage to tell you.
Thirty-five years later.
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