I sat down to write a story about a bunch of strange stuff including the fact that in 10th grade I had a "pet" giant dead cockroach named Riggy, which was short for Rigor Mortis. But then I started thinking about boys and first kisses and stuff like that. And those things have nothing to do with one another. I'm just really confused right now.

The summer between 8th and 9th grade was the first time that I ever open mouth kissed a boy. And I open mouth kissed that boy A LOT that summer. See, I may have waited a long time to tongue kiss a boy, but at least when I finally did it I was smart enough to choose a boy that lived within walking distance of my house, therefore increasing the amount of tongue kissing by, oh, I don't know...A bazillion-fold? I spent that summer making up for lost time and also making my mom ask me approximately 831 times, what was wrong with my lips. Because when you are kissing someone like there is an asteroid hurtling towards Earth and the only thing that can save humanity is not Bruce WIllis and a cheesy Aerosmith song, but YOU having your tongue in some boy's mouth all day every day, pausing only to have a drink of water every now and then so you don't totally dry up, your lips end up looking like giant, red, chapped fish lips.

And although this particular boy took my French Kissing virginity, I had semi-technically had a few previous "boyfriends" who weren't really "boyfriends" inasmuch as they were boys who were friends who one day said to me "Ya wanna go together?" to which I replied "I guess" and then became super duper confused when we didn't actually go anywhere at all. I soon figured out that all the term "going together" meant in middle school was that you tell everyone you're going out, and you basically just keep saying that to people until something dramatic happens, like your "boyfriend" sees the way that Susie Thompson's boobies bounce up and down when she competes in the sack races at 7th grade field day, and he dumps you and your A-cups before you even have a chance to totally hypnotize him with your mad mad hula hoop skills.

Psst! I'll tell you a little secret: Boys? They like the boobies.

I guess my first "boyfriend," at least in my mind, was a boy named Mikey. Our moms were friends so we hung out together a lot, went to school together, etc... And unless my memory fails,me (which it rarely does unless tequila is involved, which it wasn't, cuz I was only 8 and I'm not a goddamn Barrymore), one time we had a fast-as-lightening closed mouth kiss by the bathroom at school, which to an 8-year-old is some pretty heavy stuff. But it only happened once with him, and I realized that he was too goody-goody for me. He was a Ricky Stratton and I was looking for a Derek Taylor. Then came the boy in my neighborhood that I used to make play house with me under the picnic table. I would make him closed mouth kiss me, tell me I was pretty, and then sweep up the patio while I made dinner, i.e. opened up some Coca-Cola's and Slim Jim's.

My sister, me, and boy #1.
Yes, we are wearing matching keds.
Yes, our mothers must have hated us.

In 6th grade my friend's older 7th grade brother asked me to "go with" him. Since the other two boys were friends of mine, the had never asked me this particular question. Since we were already friends, we just skipped such formalities and got straight to the closed-mouth kissing. But this boy asked me to "go with" him, all serious and formal and everything. So I said "go where?" and he said "nowhere" and I was mega-confused and I just told him he was stupid. But then when I told my friends about it and they explained it to me, I went back and told him yes. And I went absolutely nowhere with him for a few weeks. And since I only saw him for 10 minutes before school and at absolutely no other time since 6th and 7th graders were kept totally separate and he did not live within bike riding distance of my home, it was a pretty innocent, and boring, romance.

Then one day this boy's sister invited me to spend the night, and since I had never slept over at her house before I was super excited and said okay. Then when I got there, she dropped a bombshell: "My parents said we could sleep out back in the camper, and my brother is gonna sneak out there and I will leave you two alone." Ummm....#1) WTF? And #2) Oh. Hell. No. This was a 7th grade boy that I had agreed to "go with" based on the facts that it meant absolutely nothing and I never had to be alone with him. Ever. But staying all night ALONE with me in a camper? An automobile with a bed in it? A sex vehicle? No thank you. I mean, he was in 7th grade for Pete's sake. And I had heard tell of 7th graders making sexy time in the woods during recess. And that news? That scared this open-mouth-kissing virgin (and every thing else virgin) to death. So what I did was what any good 6th grade tongue virgin would do: I pretended to have a tummy ache, called my mom, and went home. The trip home was quite a relief, but also slightly bittersweet because I WAS looking forward to that tongue kissing situation. I had practiced on my right arm so much that I was starting to develop strange feelings for one particular bit of my forearm. I was not, however, EVEN THE SLIGHTEST BIT READY to have ANYTHING else happen. Especially the sexy time. At least not with another person. Sure, I had been "dating" myself for quite some time, but "dating" a boy? No no no no no no and no.

After I barely dodged that camper sex party, I pretty much spent the next 2 years dry-humping my pillow and pretending it was Billy Idol. The closest I got to making out with a boy was square dancing in 7th grade P.E. class. Don't get me wrong, I was all kinds of fired up to do some making out. My pillow had pretty much been humped into oblivion. But during those years I got tall. Taller than the boys. And when you are taller than the boys, they aren't really that into you. And ya know what? You're not all that into them either. You know who IS into you? College boys. We lived in a neighborhood of fraternities and college rental homes, and when you are as tall as a college girl, you get talked to. A lot. They assumed  I was in high school, and I often enjoyed dropping the pedophile bombshell on them that I was, indeed, only 13 or whatever I was at the time. If I was afraid of that 7th grade boy's secret sex camper, I sure as hell wasn't gonna mess with any college guys.

That brings us back to the beginning of this story, which was the summer between 8th and 9th grade. When I tongue kissed a boy for approximately 90 days straight and pretty much lost total feeling in my lips after day 29, but kept on going anyways. Cuz I'm a trooper like that. And as an end of summer parting gift, I may or may not have let him touch my boobies. I'm not gonna say, because sometimes my parents read this when they're really mega bored and are in the mood to punish themselves. I don't know why they do it, but they do. So let's just end this story by saying that after the 3 month kiss-a-thon and a possible boob-touch, I read the Bible and prayed to Baby Jeebus every night and asked for forgiveness for being a tongue tramp. The End.

P.S. I totally let him touch my boobs. And it rocked.