Zoology student Devon Kodzis's strategy of attracting boys with fun animal facts proves difficult.

Devon Kodzis has a degree in biological sciences and professional experience in teaching, animal training, and education outreach, and science program design. She is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Biological Sciences. Her passions include reading about food, and shouting at the Antiques Roadshow with her cat. Devon is a Dallas-based producer for Story Collider.

This story originally aired on November 1, 2019 in an episode titled “Crushes.”

Story Transcript

My first day of kindergarten, I wore my absolute best shorts. They were pink and they looked like slices of watermelon and they had little black seed sown on them. Ah, yes. I see someone else is excited about these shorts. And I also wore my favorite National Geographic t-shirt. I came in that first day with a plan and so when Miss Sands announced it was time for recess, I put it into action.

I jumped up on top of the blue circle table and I said, “Come on, girls. Let's go get us some boys.”

And I ran out to that dusty expanse of a playground because, you see, I had stayed up late the night before watching a documentary on the topi antelope. For those of you unfamiliar with this incredible creature, the female topi antelope is unique because she pursues the males. And I had found my prey.

James Samuelson, his little black flap of hair, kind of blue in the back of his neck in the wind and I saw him running and I said, “That one is mine.”

So I took off sprinting after him. And this kid looks back and sees this chunky, little kid in pink shorts sprinting towards him, just very sweaty, and he has no idea why I'm chasing him but he is very scared. He starts running faster but it's too late. I had already gained the ground and I got on top of him and I went to put my mouth on his mouth.

And just as I got close, he punched me in the stomach and said, “Why are you so weird?”

I'd really like to say that my relationship with the male members of our specie improved between kindergarten and when I was a sophomore Zoology major at Florida State. I certainly had more to work with. I grew some up top. I grew some behind. I got these guys all straightened out so I was looking really good.

By the time I was in college with my 4.0 GPA in Zoology, I was great at getting male members of the species into corners with me at parties. I could attract them. And as soon as they would get in, and I would say something normal like, “How's the weather out there?” They would get close and, like clockwork, it would happen.

Maybe they have a butterfly on their shirt that I've studied or putting their arm up there is a snake tattoo crawling towards their wrists. And, as they would get closer, it would come up like hot lava and I couldn't stop it. I would say, “Did you know that the snake on your arm is a lot like a tree snake that can be found in the Amazon? And the coolest thing about that snake is that it can open its jaws really wide, swallow an egg whole, use a reverse vertebrae to crack open the shell, suck out the yolk and spit out the shell whole.”

And they would fade into the distance. I would go home to my six herpetology books, my 4.0 GPA, and I would look up my favorite animal to research when I was feeling solitary, the Pacific giant octopus. If you have never Googled, I highly recommend.

They're incredible, these large, brilliant, intellectually brilliant creatures with eight flowing tentacles. I was just enraptured with these creatures. I had notebooks full of printouts about them, pictures up on my wall like a rock band. I could not get enough and I thought one day, one day I will not come home to this octopus. One day, I will come home to a human man.

That day did not occur before the summer of my sophomore year in college, so by the summer of my sophomore year I had gone home. I was invited to a toga party which is, I suppose, what normal college kids go to, and I said, “Okay, you're going to do it.”

I wrap myself in what can only be justified as a tea towel. I've left my hair really big and I looked in the mirror and I said, “Devon, you're going to go to this party. You're going to say normal things to men. You are not going to say any fun animal facts tonight, young lady. And you are going to put your mouth on one of their mouths.”

And so I went to the party. It was a friend of a friend's house and everything is bumping and jumping. Everyone is sweaty and wrapped in sheets and so I kind of slid along the back wall kind of staying away from all the bodies until I had some liquid courage in me. I made it to the kitchen, took a few shots, and I was feeling pretty good.

I was making eye contact with a guy in Power Ranger sheets in the corner. I figured, yeah, that's probably about as good as it's going to get tonight so we'll do it. And then, just as I am getting ready and I am looking over, I hear someone shout, “Make way for Zeus,” and he rises out of the crowd. Brown, rippling, milky blue eyes, a tongue lolling outside of his mouth. It was the most incredible chocolate lab I'd ever seen.

And he was being carried by a very drunk, young, blonde man through the crowd, teetering drunkenly with the dog above his head, and I knew I had to pet that dog. I watch as the boy carried the dog out to the lawn amidst all the partiers and released him like a drunken Merman onto the grass. And then he reached into his toga and pulled out ear drops and put ear drops in the dog and rubbed his ears and said, “Good boy, Zeus. You're such a good boy. I love you so much.”

And we had a change of plans, ladies and gentlemen. I was going to put my mouth on his mouth, the man, not the dog.

So I grabbed bottle from behind and I go teetering out to the lawn. I sit down next to the blonde boy and I say things like, “The weather is nice,” and, “Do you think that young woman vomiting in the bushes is going to make it through the night?”

And we're chatting, and we start talking about movies and books and the Salvador Dali tattoo on his arm, and it’s going great. He's getting closer and closer and closer to me. And he puts his arm behind me and I'm thinking, “You're going to do it. It’s going to happen. You're going to put your mouth on his mouth and then your parts on his parts and it's going to be amazing.”

And then he says, “Oh, you brought the Kraken Rum out. I love Kraken Rum.” And he pulls the bottle in front of my face that I had brought out and, lo and behold, on it, emblazoned on the paper wrapper is a Kraken. For those of you unfamiliar with Kraken Rum, on it is an eight-legged creature attacking a ship. Some might say it looks just like a great Pacific octopus.

I say nothing. I take whatever is inside of me and I squish it as small as I can and I am just looking in the dark at his face. And he says, “I love octopuses. I would love to go to the Atlanta Aquarium. Did you know, Devon, that the Atlanta aquarium hosts singles night sleepovers and I really want to go and my plan was always to go and camp out near the octopus tank because I knew whatever woman I met there would probably be really cool.”

And I said, “Oh.” And I can feel the fire coming up and I'm pushing it down. And he says to me, “Did you know that the Giant Pacific Octopus, when it has a head the size of a softball, can fit through…”

And folks, it's done. The fire is up in my throat. Now, there is no controlling what is about to happen. I grab him and I shout, “They fit through a hole the size of a nickel.”

Floodgates open, team. And then I'm like, “Did you know that the male member of the octopus species has a specialized arm that can be used to transfer sperm packets to the female partner called a hectocotylus?”

And he said, “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

And then he reaches and hands the bottle in front of me and he says, “Here, I'll make sure that gets into recycling for you.”

It's been what? Nine years now, baby? That's right. I brought a surprise husband into the audience. We actually just celebrated our four-year wedding anniversary this week. Baby, I think you're more popular than the story. I'll have to keep that in mind.

So the thing is, honey, you have followed me everywhere. You have picked me up and shipped me across the country to train animals, to pursue a degree in journalism, to live my life as I needed to and you have never asked me to be anything other than exactly who I am. You have even allowed me to wake you up at 2:00 in the morning because I found that really great article about sperm whale song and you had to know that it's the poetry of the animal kingdom.

So I guess if there was something I wanted to say to you tonight, in front of everybody here, it's that when the southern chorus frog goes to spawn in the spring, they go down to a pond nearby and they go and they scream for their mates at night, top of their little frog lungs. But the thing is, everybody else, every other frog species in the area also goes to the same pond and they scream and scream and scream and, so from the outside, what you're hearing is the spring peepers and the wood frogs and the southern chorus frogs all screaming for each other and it just sounds like pennies in a can, like a horrible cacophony of noise.

And you think, “How could anybody find their partner in all that sound?”

But the thing is, baby, frog ears are special. They’ve got these little tympana, these freaky little trampolines and they are tuned only to the sound of their own kind so everything else is drowned out. I was screaming for so long before I met you. I'm just really glad your freaky little ears were tuned into my song. Thank you.