Since I was kind of a tomboy in elementary school (like a gross, mid ’90s, sort of trashy, eastside tomboy who desperately wanted a Charlotte Hornets Starter jacket), “having a crush” on a boy meant I played basketball one-on-one with him at recess and volunteered to write a D.A.R.E. play just so I could be in his Language Arts group. Sexy!

In college I told a friend about my first elementary school crush and then, naturally, I asked about hers.

“Oh…I can’t. Ahh. Hmmm – I totally remember that far back.”

“Really? Like you can’t like think of his name? Or… there were just so many to choose from?”

“No. Nothing like that, it’s just more like I am embarrassed about it.”

“Well it’s not like I knew him. We went to different elementary schools and in totally diff–”

“It was Michelangelo, ok???”

Her first crush was on a pizza-eating, apparently surf-waxing, very likely bong-hitting, cartoon mutant ninja turtle.

And who amongst us has not had a crush on a fictional character? (Please list in the comments.)

I know that I kind of have one right now and it’s on Tom Haverford from Parks and Recreation.

For one thing, I really do think the show has gotten better and better. (Feel free to disagree with me in the comments.) For two things, I realized that Tom Haverford inhabits a very special intersection in the Character and Typecast Man Quadrants of my mind: the origin. Observe the chart above for proof.

– Emily Weiss is a quadrant 2/4 kind of lady
– Jessie King did the stellar Paint artwork