Things I Can’t Take Back: My years-long crush on Tara Reid

Have you ever done something so lame, so embarrassing, so unbelievably STUPID that you visibly cringe, regardless of where you are and what you’re doing? Lord knows I have. I’ve got a ton of those under my belt. So I figure, why not share those with you? You know, you are my friends and all.

Thing I can’t take back:
My years-long crush on Tara Reid

As far as I'm concerned, there was no year after 2002.

In the spring of 2002, my friends Tony, Adam, Pat, and I went on spring break to the totally wild and absolutely incomprehensible party cluster F that is…Williamsburg, Virginia. Hey, any port in a storm. On the road trip from MA to VA, we had the newest issue of Maxim magazine that featured the soon-to-be-co-star of Van Wilder, Tara Reid. 

 

This was not just a woman; this was a deity. This was an argument for perfection on fluffy pillows and lounging in my admittedly repugnant imagination. The voice spoke to a past of cigarettes and hushed secrets in basements and speakeasies. 

Tara Reid, you could do no wrong. You were so good-looking, you were bedding Tom Brady, which at that point in time seemed like a completely legitimate seal of approval. At least you didn’t pop a circuit and pull the goalie like Bridget Moynihan (though I’m wondering if you’re mad you didn’t think of that first).

Then you started dating Jeremy Shockey, which seemed bad-girlish enough (and I told myself I was a bad little boy. Who needed to be punished. WHAT?) People started to say things about you, Tara, but I didn’t listen. They clearly did not see you in “Body Shots.” They did not know your goddess quality. Then you fell off the grid. I defended you and bought DVDs of “Scrubs.”

 

I'm fine with this. I'm fine with this. I'm fine with this. I'm fine with...

 

 

Then I heard you got a boob job. I argued it was icing on the cake. People gave me empirical evidence that you were bat shit crazy. They knew nothing. When a girlfriend ever questioned my devotion, I looked them dead in the eyes and told them with a straight face, “You’re the only girl for me. You, and Tara Reid.”

 

Uh-oh...

I was with you through every indication you were a walking pharmacy, though nipple slips, through just about everything that could really be said to shake my heaven-sent crush, even your induction into Bill Simmons’ “ The Tyson Zone.”

Then I snapped out of it. I mean, really? REALLY? American Pie 2 and Van Wilder were sweet, but come ON! I think I actually tried to make the case she was hotter than Halle Berry (I will hold “Catwoman” over your heads FOREVER), and I lost respect. I lost friends, I lost trust in my judgment, and I think its safe to say I completely lost my head. She got surgery that turned her areolas into the shape of New Jersey, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the state had filed a defamation of character suit upon seeing it.

 

Who said "Chili Dogs?!?" I'll drive!

 

 

Why did my friends not do their honor-bound duty and slap me about the head and face several times until I realized the basic fact that my crush on Tara Reid was absurd and about three years too old. I’m not above thinking Tom Brady has a poster of Tara like those posters seniors used to put on their walls about skinny freshmen. “Tara Reid: Get her while she’s classy.” I dropped the ball big time there, friends. Big time. I held on to that crush like a blankie soaked in mascara, vodka, and cocaine.

I’m your friend, Woody Tondorf. I had an absurd, blinders-on, years-long crush on Tara Reid, and that’s something I can’t take back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…are they gone? Tara, if you’re still reading this, I totally didn’t mean any of that. I still watch Van Wilder and pray for you to be waiting by the side of the road in that rain jacket, tweed skirt, and F me boots. Come back to me. I left word with your representation. I heard you just got out of rehab. The thousand mile journey of recovery begins with a single step toward my apartment.

 

In happier times.