My First Love

After months of squiring, i.e. begging, I finally landed my first girlfriend in the spring of my junior year of high school. Yes, I know that's about 9 years later than everyone else, but I was busy. And by "busy", I mean "ugly." Anyways I was madly in love and after a few weeks of passionate amour, I knew the time had come for that age-old rite of passage: her first rim-job. No no no, I'm kidding, of course I mean her coming for dinner and meeting my family. Which, like every other kid in the world, I dreaded. I don't know why - my parents were about as normal, straight as arrows dullsville people as you could get. Their evenings consisted of my mother standing in the kitchen blathering about her day while my dad nodded his head to her as he read "A History of the 12th Canadian Provincial Infantry, Vol VI." Exciting stuff. But of course this was the exact moment I was terrified that all of a sudden they'd turn into a country rube version of the Honeymooners while brewing homemade crunk and breakdancing (or, to use a term my mother coined, "poppin & lockin") - after MUCH pleading, they agreed that while she was over for dinner they'd try to be as normal as possible. Satisfied just short of having them sign something in front of a lawyer, the plan was set in motion, the date was set and I prepared to introduce my girlfriend to the ol family.

They say timing is everything. I became a believer as the day of our big dinner coincided with TA-DA!!...report card day. Oh, jesus. Now, I had always been a good student; at my school you basically had to be a living human being to do fine, and even if you weren't there was always the vocational building. This was not the Bronx School of Science. My slight rebellion at my brother being the smartest kid in school coupled with my over the top laziness and my being, as my father slowly read the evaluation from my first SATs (a whole nother story), a "goddam idiot" all led to my average standing. I did enough to coast along with As and Bs, but didn't really overextend myself. However. In my irrational, tunnel-visioned, teenage-crazed desperate courtship of my girlfriend I had let my studies "slip" even by my own "standards." As I was handed my report card that day, to be of course brought home and signed by my parents, a chill went through myself which was validated as I opened up and saw a letter never before brought home in my house:

F.

F!!!! In AP History. Alright alright, I'm thinking, don't panic....if I can just get through dinner tonite without them realizing today was report card day, I'll be fine....Dad will bury me in the backyard tomorrow, but it won't be in front of my girlfriend. I quickly found my brother and told him to not bring it up at dinner. He didn't care; he knew what his grades were, as did my parents and the color guard flown in by the state to present the report card "of excellence for the ages." Be cool, get through dinner, everything will be fine and she and I will be together madly in love for all eternity or, more importantly, long enough to find out if this rumor about girls having pubic hair was true.

Of course, I forgot to mention my plan to my little sister. Sigh. She must've been in oh, 5th or 6th grade. You know, all A's and checkmarks and "Xmastime plays well with other little boys in the bathroom stalls" etc etc. So after a great introduction and beginning of dinner where my parents were cool, cosmopolitan and were forming a mutual admiration society with my gf (tho mainly cause she had been my trig tutor), I heard the words.

"Daddy we got report cards today!" I frantically looked at my girlfriend and briefly considered throwing her on the table and making love to her so that in a few minutes I wouldn't die a virgin. My sister came sprinting back to the table with her report card, my parents all gleeful and clapping and talking about the new dress they'll buy her for such a good report card. They say you can drown by a tablespoon of water in the lungs. I'm not sure, I know I got at least a quart of milk in me as I desperately tried. Next up, my brother's report card. After washing his hands my dad was allowed to look at it, and after the slow-clap-leading-to-a-full-standing-ovation had died down I felt his eyes on me, waiting for me to present mine. I got really interested in the stuffing we were eating. "Say mom, is this chicken flavored stove top? really? Great....you add butter? Wow! Can you use the pork type with chicken? really? hmmm...say, I-" finally I had to snap to and give it up. I handed my report over to him and thought about how horrified my girlfriend was gonna be with the scene that was to follow. She wasn't used to such things; her rich, cultured family ate fried chicken with a fork for chrissakes. Well, I figured, I got to experience love for a few weeks at least, what can you do. My dad was silently scanning the report card, I'm watching his eyes and they suddenly come to a stop. Of course I knew what he had landed on. His eyes cut to me for a second, then back to the piece of paper. Then back to me, then the paper. Then over to Neil Diamond, who for some reason was eating with us. Then across the table at my mother, who shrugged and gave him the "nobody said we had to have sex twice, asshole" look. I'm watching, dreading. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. No, that was my little brother, 4 years old and oblivious to the fact that he was about to inherit my collection of Sears Catalog Lingerie Editions.

My father never said a word. Silently he rose from the table and carried my report card over to the kitchen sink. Wordlessly we're all watching him, thinking "what the...."...finally he looks at me, and hold up the report card and says "This. Will. Never. Happen. Again." Then he pulls out a match, lights it, and sets the thing on fire. I look at my gf, who is stunned with her mouth open staring as the flames fly up from the paper. Nobody says a word, and after a minute the piece of paper is no more, a few ashes in the sink. Without a word my dad walked back to the table and resumed eating.

The end? Nyet. After dinner yours truly stops up the crapper which sets off a flood of such proportions that it explodes into the hallway, so my new gf, who has just witnessed my father setting something on fire, gets to watch her man trying to fight back shit-water in the hall. Great. And that wasn't even the worst - as punishment, my parents took away my car and I had to do THE single-most humiliating thing a 3-sport varsity athlete in his junior year can possibly do: ride the bus home. Wow. Banned from baseball practice, thereby becoming the one white academic casualty in the history of the school, my gf would walk me to the bus everyday to say goodbye. Unreal. I'd kiss her goodbye, then get on the bus with a bunch of 7th and 8th graders. Ouch. It wasn't ALL bad I guess - they reminded me of youth and innocence, and I showed them you can't get pregnant from anal. Xmastime 101.

Somehow, someway, my girlfriend stuck with me for about another 2 years, which can only be young love. Indoor fires, shit in the hallway and riding on the bus...THAT's love, people.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY