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16 february 2001
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lessons are not shameful Get your notepad. This is an online tutorial for the ages. Call it a Valentines Day wrapup, developed after many interviews and a bit of somewhat scientific research. Now give me my genius grant already! I wonder sometimes if there should be a license to smooch. I say this because a girlfriend of mine and I were having coffee, and conversation turned to our first-ever kisses. They were, not surprisingly, awful. People who tell you their first kiss experience was great? Liars! (Unless you were sixteen or something and the other person actually knew what they were doing.) But preteen smooch action? With few exceptions, bleck, ptooey, time to go home and gargle. My name is Kim, and I kissed a trumpet-playing nerd with a deviated septum. HI, Kim! I was thirteen, and Billy* (name changed to protect St. Bernard-mouth) lived in the same neighborhood as me. Billy and I were also band nerds (me: flute, piccolo, and tenor saxophone; Billy: trumpet and cornet) and preteen buddies. We'd hang out at the pool sometimes over the summer, or walk around the neighborhood golf course or lake. Typical naive kid activities, which included "race you!", discussions about how we couldn't wait to get out of our teeny-tiny town, and "hey, cool Sting t-shirt!". So one summer evening, Billy and I were running around the golf course looking for stray Titelists or something, and we ended up in a rough area to take a breather. Chat chat chat, more chat chat chat, and then everything got silent. Not like pleasant-moment silent, but foreboding quiet. Billy was looking at me funny. I think I asked him if he was sick or something. Billy continued to look weird. And before I knew it, his face was right in front of mine, and our lips made contact. Mm. Kissing. Okay. Time to look for more golf balls! Billy wasn't finished. He then proceeded to move in a little closer, intent on continuing with this activity. I guess between my simultaneous shock and grossed-outedness, I just didn't know what to do. What I did know was that Billy had somehow formed a wet vacuum seal around my orthodontically-challenged mouth, and that there was an extra tongue in there. Billy also had a rather large nose, which kept pushing my eye too far back in the socket. I was concerned for my sight. I felt soggy. This was not romantic. This was a monsoon on legs. After a few moments of this, I gently pushed him off of me and stuttered something really becoming like can't...breathe. Need...towel. He looked very pleased with himself. I was dizzy and a little nauseated. I didn't know what to do. Pelt him with golf balls and make a run for it? Switch school districts? Start wearing a bra every day whether I needed it or not? Poor misguided Billy. Now, this is not to say that the unpleasantess of this event was all his fault. He just picked the wrong girl--me--whose hormones were more or less on standby until college. Nonetheless, an important lesson was to be learned. It doesn't necessarily get better with adulthood. So Girlfriend and I made an impromptu list that I am happy to share with you here. Please feel free to copy and distribute it en masse. Ahem:
That said, go have a swell weekend. Practice, practice. Show your work. Quiz on Monday. Click here if you're interested in submitting your own life and stuff . Come on...I know you've got a story in you. |
