Monday 28 April 2008
Things which irritate me: Not having a fucking clue Big O-mometer: **
Home mystery over. I had it completely wrong all along. Uncle Joe is not coming to stay. Mandy is not knocked up. How do I know this? My dad told me, in a round-about and embarrassing way.
I get home Friday afternoon, and later I'm getting prepped to go out with Ben to Debs' birthday thing, and my dad comes into my room. I don't keep the door shut ever, so he didn't have to knock or anything, but he asked me if I had a minute. Of course I have time for my old man, so I tell him if he doesn't mind my getting ready while he talks... he says he won't be long and he'd prefer my undivided attention.
Not gonna lie, this sounds serious. I was immediately on guard. Is this about to be The Question? Have I somehow let something slip, perhaps not cleared out my history properly on the family computer? So I sit on the bed, mind racing and ready to come up with something if necessary, and gesture for him to sit down as well -- I make sure I'm at the foot of the bed and he's up top so he doesn't have a clear view of the bookcase at the end of the bed where I occasionally have to stash... things. There might be a t-shirt lying on the floor at the foot of the bed which might have been used to mop up Thursday night's festivities that I forgot to throw into the wash, and although I'm sure my old man got up to the same shit I do and he no doubt would understand everything, I'm not all that keen on him finding things stained in come on my floor, right? Right. Let's just say we don't want a repeat of that and leave it there for now. So I position him strategically and wait for him to start. It's nerve-wracking, worrying about whether he can see anything he shouldn't now, and also whether he's seen anything he shouldn't have somewhere else, and right about now I'm mentally ready to go down in flames.
It's at this point I can tell he's nervous too, and the reason for this becomes pretty apparent. He produces, from his pocket, a pack of condoms. I'm thrown, but not sure I'm safe yet. It's quiet. We both start to blush.
A word on my upbringing -- it was quiet, and suburban; like the definition of bucolic, and also very conservative. My folks and I never had The Chat, and it didn't happen at school either. Ben had a book on where babies come from which explained it all, and I found it there when I was about eight or so at a sleepover and read it. I mentioned it, all excited, when I got home, and that was prep enough for the folks and they reckoned their work was done. Everything more advanced I learned the old-fashioned way -- the playground at school. That's where the Playboy was passed around, where somebody had an old videotape or home-burned CD-RW or DVD stolen from his dad's porn collection, and of course when the internet and cellphones with internet became more commonplace in the last couple years, that's where we traded info. So Dad and I have never had this sort of chat -- more importantly neither have Mom and I, thank G_d -- and to be fair, I've known the basics for years, and all the more advanced stuff since I was like 14, all of which makes The Chat superfluous, surplus to requirements, and fucking embarrassing. As I've hinted at above, Dad has only once mentioned anything even vaguely sex-related to me, and that was a cautionary tale about cleaning up after me-time when I was like 13 or something and was super-awks.
Anyway, he puts the `doms on my bed and we both avoid looking at them, like they're a guy who's got a piss spot on the front of his pants, or something. I can see he's struggling, but I don't really want to start the discussion and I'm not entirely sure what angle he's playing anyway. It was like fucking chess for a few seconds. So finally he blurts out a question, asking me if I know what they are and how they work.
Okay, confession time -- I knew what they were, but up till recently I had no idea what to expect from one. Then I nicked one from a dispenser in the bathroom in the Chem building -- there are dispensers all over campus -- and I might have actually played with it a bit. Bearing in mind, I had only seen one in the flesh once before, on my second day of varsity, they had bands playing on The Plaza at lunchtime, and in between two of the bands some hapless woman gave us a demonstration. She had a gigantic rubber pelvis -- hips, erect cock and balls, and a huge and imposing rubber bush -- and she hijacked the stage in between two bands to show us how to put on a condom, since every Rookie pack they handed out during Freshers' Week had one in it, apparently. Mine didn't, in fact, as I discovered when I tried to find it later that night. Anyway, she bravely did this demo while everyone pissed themselves laughing, and I only got brave enough to nick one from the big jar of free condoms about three weeks later, panicking that someone would see me take it or it would fall out my pocket in lectures or something. So I took one and I might have tried it on a little bit -- don't judge me, Diary; this was just a week or so before I started writing you -- and I now have a clue about how it all works. No, we definitely didn't do this at school. I have no idea why, because this should be fucking taught.
Anyway, to get things moving, I pick up the pack and say thanks, and he starts with pregnancy. I was expecting something about waiting, and true love, but nope. I'm guessing Dad either thinks I've done it already -- not sure why he would, because like I haven't dated anyone in ages, but given how many girls at school got knocked up last year I'm not surprised he thinks I'm not a virgin and I'm kinda flattered -- or he is really being liberal about the idea of sleeping around, I don't know. Anyway, he talks about being prepared and unwanted pregnancies and not doing anything careless and how abortion might be legal but it can't be an easy mental thing and how babies can change your life and how Mandy has the church thing and they aren't worried about her as much as me now that I'm at varsity, and it hits me -- nothing about STDs, nothing at all. Almost like they know STDs are often fixable but babies not so much and definitely not without more trauma, and it's like he's had a pregnancy scare of his own. I know I wasn't a shotgun baby and I wonder if maybe him and Mom, or him and a previous girlfriend, had to have an abortion one time, and suddenly it makes sense.
The pregnancy test I found in the bin was Mom's, not Mandy's. The family happiness I wrote about on Thursday must have been an all-clear, the red tide, and presumably the test I found in the bin was a false positive, or maybe they all change colour if you leave them long enough. Either way, the `rentals were stressed for the last few weeks and prepping for #3 in their mid 40s, and this is why Dad has to be brave and I'm now being given The Talk, or at least a variation of sorts, and a pack of condoms. And I misread the entire thing.
Guess both Holmes and boring Watson have one up on me after all.
He hasn't asked, but to spare myself the agony of waiting for the question which may or may not come I tell him the opportunity hasn't presented itself just yet, but that I would have made sure I was prepared if it had and I'm grateful he's got the ball rolling there for me. Dad smiles -- couldn't tell if he was being patronising or if it was something else like relief -- and ruffles my hair like I'm just a kid again. And he tells me I'm going to break a lot of girls' hearts in my time. And then I'll make some lucky lady very happy someday. And I smile back while I lie through my teeth and, very quietly, with a gentle sigh, another little piece inside me dies and crumbles to dust.
I need to get this out, man. This is eating me alive. When Dad left I just sat quietly for about 10 minutes, staring at the wall and hating myself and my inability to act. I was just off for the rest of the night after that, and noticeably so. Twice while we were out later Ben asked what was wrong, and I brushed him off saying I was just tired and annoyed after our prac. If he knows me half as well as I think he does, he knows I'm bullshitting him. I need to get this out, before I'm so deep in that even I don't know who I am anymore. Mr G_d, I don't ask for much, you know I don't. But I need some help here, Mr G, I need to find some guts, even if only for a day or two, and get this out of me once and for all. Please please please.
-C