Stuart G's condom post made me recall this situation.
I was in the 7th Grade. My dad had passed on a few years prior to this.
My mom wasn't home. I went snooping in a closet...I forget what prompted me to do this. I was looking for something. Can't remember what.
There was a box on the top shelf of the closet, about the size of a shoe box. It had a label on it from a manufacturer. I read the label and really had no idea what it was saying.
When I opened the box, I saw it contained these round, white plastic containers, each about a half inch tall and two inches in diameter.
There was also a little black and white comic book type of thing. I opened it up and it contained explicit drawings of two people in various sexual positions. This freaked me out to no end. I was trying to figure out what the couple in the drawings was doing, and my little pea brain couldn't process it. What....wha....what are they....wha... Anyway, the guy in the drawings had what looked to be about a 20 inch penis. I dropped my pants and looked at my own penis and thought WHAT THE HELL?
Then I took the lid off one of the plastic containers. Each container contained 3 condoms. Imagine being in this situation, at that age, and seeing a condom for the first time. What the fuck is this thing? I took one out. I'm holding it up to the light examining it, unrolling it, stretching it, swinging it around, trying to figure out what the hell it was.
I called my friend to come over. I showed him and said...what are these things? He didn't know either.
We had a friend whose father was either an actual Hell's Angel, or in some other biker club. We knew this was the guy to ask. We brought the condoms over to this guy's father, and he explained in great detail, what they were and how to use them. All I could think about was my parents using them, and you know what they say...never imagine your parents having sex. It will fuck you up. By the way, nobody called them condoms back them. "Rubbers" was the correct term.
Turns out there was a gross of condoms in the box. I'm not sure that I've had sex 144 times in my life. I'm assuming that my parents went through a box a week. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
My friend spread the word around school that I had 144 rubbers. He explained to the people out of the loop what rubbers were. I became known as the "Rubber Man". For a few weeks, my friend would walk in front of me in the school hallways like a parade leader, chanting "HERE COMES THE RUBBER MAN. HERE COMES THE RUBBER MAN". Kind of like the guy shown in the picture below.
You're welcome.
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Thank you.
-Laelth
I read the piece to my daughter, and she appreciated it too. There are no grammatical errors (you do not offend my sense of how the English language should sound). There are no spelling mistakes (you do not offend my sense of how the English language should look). The story is contextualized (I saw the thread to which you referred earlier today). The narrative is brisk and compelling. It is chock full of natural, human emotions that I can imagine myself feeling. It is stocked with meaningful, realistic characters with whom I can relate (the friend’s biker dad is perfect), and it made me laugh ... several times. You even went to the trouble to add a relevant illustration.
Credit where it is due. You have a gift. Thank you for sharing it with us here.
-Laelth
