So without any further ado I present "Clean Up? There's Clean Up?"
After
“the talk” from my Dad…you know, the one with the stick figure tech manuals, I
was kind of scared of girls. Maybe part of it was also the fear of rejection
the unknown, but I kept hearing the old man’s words ringing in my ears “don’t ever get a broad pregnant.” There
was no way I wanted my life ruined per his warnings!
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| I'm 17 in this picture...not 13...true story... |
It
didn’t help that because I was a smaller kid, I wasn’t exactly brimming with
confidence. Unless a girl told me that she flat out liked me, I generally
missed all the signs. I honestly believe that if some poor girl had flown a
banner over my house saying she wanted to date me, I would have said it must
have been meant for some other Lloyd. I
was truly that pathetic.
I look back and see that I unfortunately
missed out on dating so many quality girls who have grown up to be amazing
women. There are a few in particular wonder what in the hell wasn’t I
thinking! It was so bad at one point, that the girl who left the footprints on
my windshield had finally taken matters into her own hands (or I guess
technically her mouth) and stuck her tongue in my ear while I was giving her a
ride home from work.
It took an overt act of that magnitude to get through my
thick skull!
When
you had no game, talking to girls was tough enough, but asking one out was terrifying.
We didn’t really “date” either; a date being defined as going out together for
dinner, etc. with no real commitment. When you asked a girl out in high school,
which meant that you were steady (though as I said in an earlier post, we
didn’t use that word). You asked her out and if she said yes, you were instantly
a couple. I much preferred how things were once I got to college. You’d go on a
multiple dates before deciding if you wanted to make it a regular thing.
Anyway,
I digress…back to those scary girls. If you wanted to ask one out it was a
whole process…
- You had to get the nerve up to talk to her, usually in the halls of learning where everyone’s eye were on you…or at least it felt that way
- Then you had to ask for her phone number
- Then you had to muster up the nerve to actually dial the numbers and hope to God that she answered and not her mother or god forbid her father
- Then you had to hope she said yes or tell you she had to wash her hair Friday night…or hang up laughing
It
was far too much for this kid to handle, so I didn’t really date until I was a junior
in high school and then it was girls from other towns who I worked with. At
least that way, if things went bad, I didn’t have to face them at school.
To
make matters worse, I knew absolutely nothing about sex. I mean, I knew the
general mechanics of it, but the details? Clueless. Kids at school would discuss
it and I’d pretend I knew what the hell they were talking about. Most probably
knew as little as I did and were just repeating what they’d heard from older
brothers or sisters.
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| The entrance to the old Tewksbury Memorial High |
When
I was a sophomore, I tool a shop class called “Structures.” This class had all
three grades in it and was taught by a big scary shop teacher who liked to give
kid’s crap for what seemed like no particular reason. The funny thing is, I
know him as an adult and he’s a really good guy who obviously took a lot of
pride in the kids he helped to adulthood.I told him about this story a few years ago and he reeled back in horror.
In this class we had to draw up blueprints for a house and I was really proud
of my design work. I turned it in and he looked it over and I could tell by the
scowl on his face that he wasn’t impressed.
I
grew up in a nine hundred square foot ranch house and shared a bedroom with my
brother. We had one bathroom that the whole family used. I knew absolutely
nothing about the layout of a modern house and my design reflected that.
The
teacher turned my sheet over and pointed to the master bedroom.
“Where’s
the bathroom?” he asked.
“Um,
right there,” I replied, pointing out where I thought it should be, somewhere in the hallway by the bedrooms.
“No,
you should have a master bath.”
“Why?”
“You
know, so after you and your wife are done, you can go clean up.”
I
thought for a minute? Done? Done what? Making the bed? Vacuuming? Dusting?
Then I realized
he was talking about sex and I was horrified. Not because my teacher was talking about sex, but the visuals I was experiencing in my head. I’m not sure my teacher
picked up on this, but remember when I said I was clueless about the actual sex
act?
Yeah, cleanup? Cleanup? What do you mean there’s cleanup? They just roll
over in the movies and go to sleep, there’s no cleanup. The stick figures never had any cleanup!
Right? Anyone? Is this thing on?
Next time, I'll wrap up this series with an entry called "Bound for Glory (Hole)?"
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