My Angel's in a Centerfold, Doin' the Bad Boy Boogie
By Not Tater Barley Banks | Posted Under Comment Diversions | Comments (47)
The elegantly loquacious Adrian has given me the week off. Thanks, Adrian! Here’s your excellent diversion suggestion, in full. (And for my own part, I was never, EVER the “wee piece of hell” in my family. That, of course, was my sister. I was The Good One. And The Smart One. And The Reliable One …):
An anonymous teacher once wrote to Reader’s Digest, in response to an article of theirs, the following quote:
“Your kids lead a secret double life that begins the moment they are out of your sight.”
After reading the quote the only thing I could think of was how true it was. My atrocious classmates were abominable indeed in their own ways — innocent in front their parents, and unrecognizable the moment they were on their own. Their secret lives varied depending on the person: the most innocent I can think of was one girl who’s parents were strict Christians and wouldn’t let their daughter walk out of the house in so much as a tank top. So she’d come to school in the mornings with no makeup and chaste church clothes upon her back. And as soon as she got to school, the first thing she did was go into the bathroom and slip into something resembling not Mother Teresa, but a mixture Marilyn Monroe and Tyra Banxxx. And of course, you had the naked pictures that seemingly every one of my classmates had taken of themselves, and had thus circulated them amongst everyone in my school and beyond. But I think the biggest shocker for me came the day before my buddy was shipped out to San Diego for training. We’re just hanging out in his room with his mother essentially right outside of his door, when he drops this on me: My crush that I’ve secretly pined after for 5 years was currently gunning for an actressin’ job with Vivid Entertainment. At this point in time I was simply an innocent young creature who only masturbated to the nameless denizens of online porn, so of course I had no idea what Vivid was. The following conversation went something like this:
Me: Oh (for the sake of this post I’ll only refer to my crush by her initials. And yes those are her real initials.) T.N.T. is gonna be an actress? That’s cool I guess. She’s gonna have to kill half the population of L.A. and blackmail the rest if she wants to be the next Angelina Jolie, though…
Buddy: Vivid is a porn studio, dude.
Me: :O *dumbstruck*
After those words flitted past my eardrums to reach the cortex of my few brain cells — and I was actually able to process this information after what seemed to be an eternity — I found myself alone with a strange mix of emotions. Something closely resembling perverse jubilation and wanton distraught. On one hand, I would finally be able to see the girl whom I had lusted after for so long, naked. On the other, the girl whom I would actively compare to frost flowers and sunrises in my poems would be selling her body for paltry means.
Now I know what you’re thinking. “How dare you?! It’s none of your business if T.N.T. decides to spend the rest of her life on her knees for Peter North … If you truly loved her you’d support her,” blah blah blah. But at that time, the mere thought of her even participating in the type of films that revolve around dialogue such as “Mmm, yeah, lick them balls clean bitch,” turned me into such a militia of feminism, I felt I had to stop her. I felt I had to ride up on my metaphorical white horse and save her from herself. I was going to stage an intervention.
So the next week when I see T.N.T. at church, I asked her if she’d like to have lunch with me tomorrow. Amazingly she agreed. (As you can guess I beat myself up for not asking her out sooner. I realize that it’s just lunch, so technically it’s not a date. But still… she said YES!)
And so came the day of my big intervention. We went to a rarely visited restaurant on the outskirts of town, so we wouldn’t be in a crowd as I grilled her about her life choices. We ordered our various entrée’s and made small talk. We talked about our family, about art and politics and it was just as lovely as I always imagined a real conversation with her might be like. And then she asked me the standard graduation question, and the sunshine that was gleaming on this beautiful scene was quickly extinguished as the food in my mouth turned to ash. “What are you planning to do after high school?” The moment of reckoning had come. I told her my plans, my hopes, my dreams. And I asked her the same. She told me that she was looking forward to taking a gap year before going to a university somewhere in Virginia. I tried to be casual, as I mentally shuffled my debate note cards. I told her the rumor that my buddy had told me. She blushed and laughed as she said, “I knew I shouldn’t have told [insert buddy’s name here] about that. He can’t keep secrets worth shit.”
Me: “So it’s true then?”
T.N.T.: “Yeah it is. I was kind of hoping to keep it a secret from people in town, because I’d much rather not be lynched when I come home to visit, but yeah. I sent in some videos a few months ago and I got myself an audition for next week. I’m leaving for Cali in two days.”
Me: “Does your mom know?”
T.N.T.: “Oh god no! Can you imagine?!”
Me: “Aren’t you scared?”
We talked further about it discussing the various aspects of the industry. The downsides and the benefits, etc. Long story short, I pissed her off because she thought I was being too protective of her. As you might imagine, the lunch date ended on a sour note and I took her home shortly after. And the next thing I know she’s left for California. Out of my life, and out of my reach forever.
The next week, I saw T.N.T.’s mom at church and we made small talk after the sermon. “How’s your life going” and “How’re the kids”, that kind of stuff. And that’s when she dropped a verbal letter bomb on me. She told me that T.N.T. was going to star in porn. I can’t tell you how surprised I was that those words came out of this conservative woman.
Me: “Wait. So T.N.T. told you what she’s going to do?”
T.N.T.’s mom: “No, unfortunately I heard about it through the grape-vine. I’m pretty confident though that when T.N.T. feels it’s right to tell me, she will. “
Me: :O *dumbstruck*
And so… my comment diversion suggestion is this: What have you suspected and/or known your spawn to be doing behind your back that they themselves thought they were getting away with? And to make it more inclusive, when you yourself were just a wee piece of hell, what type of shenanigans were you up to?
***
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Comments
Posted by: Patrick the Bunny at October 2, 2010 4:25 PM
First of all, that's quite a story. I hope everything turned out okay for all involved.
In my own case, I have no children, but as a freshman currently one month into my first year of living away at college, I assure you there are shenanigans.