The turtles inspire inappropriateness.

If you're anything like everybody, you remember when you learned about sex.



You remember when you learned about it in some form of educational institutionalized way, you remember when your older next door neighbor with the fringe bangs told you her form of what it was, and you remember when your parents, their voices dripping with the dread they'd had for ten years about having to do this, awkwardly stumbled through the anatomy of it.


Which one came first?

I sure as hell know which one shouldn't have come first.

 When I was in 1st grade, my 2nd-grade neighbor asked me about sex. I said I knew all about it, even though I thought it had only to do with turtles. This is simply because we had learned about turtles having turtle babies. I thought everything else got a mini-version of themselves in their stomachs because God loved them.

Here's how this went:

Neighbor: I think we should awkwardly talk about sex and hope my parents aren't listening. (That's probably not really what she said, but I have trouble remembering how the conversation initiated)

Mary: Yeah, it's not nearly as much fun to talk about as ice princesses, though.


Neighbor: Are you kidding? It has to hurt.


Mary: No it doesn't. Their shells don't even get in the way.


Neighbor: I don't know anything about shells, but girls have a mouth down there and boys have to pee in it.


Mary: ...........................................


Mary:....................................


Neighbor: Do you want to swim in my pool?


Mary: Not really, because it's not an in-ground pool. I think my mouth is on my face...?

This conversation continued until I stopped asking questions, realizing this girl was out of her mind and no amount of goldfish crackers was going to fix that.

 This information was kept in the files of my memory until one time, a few years later, I was watching TV with my mom when two people started going AT it on Cinemax. My mother about lost a limb trying to find the remote when I said,  "They look like they're happy and having fun and stuff but I think it's gross. I'm glad you and Dad don't do that." My mom responded with "Uhhhh......maybe we'll talk about that sometime."


What? Talk about it sometime? Talk about WHAT sometime? If my mom is honestly going to tell me that we have another mouth, then I'm moving to Canada, where nobody has private parts. The end.

Flash forward to fifth grade, ten years old. My teacher lets us know we will be learning about our bodies tomorrow and our parents need to sign a permission slip so we can laugh at cartoon penises.

I would rather eat manwiches than give my mom that permission slip. And by manwiches I mean sloppy joes, not some kind of misconstrued innuendo pertaining to the subject at hand.

I avoided the sex talk at all costs. When we had long car rides together I would talk incessantly, because if there were any long pauses in the conversation my mom may start talking about private mouths and I wasn't ready for something so nightmarish. I still folded my socks down and watched David the Gnome, so my bubble of the world did not include pubic fur.

After I attempted forging my mom's signature for six and a half hours, I grudgingly gave up and headed to the kitchen to give my mom the permission slip.

Mom: Wow, you're in fifth grade...time sure has flown by and we probably need to have a talk. Here's some pamphlets. Why don't you read them and we'll talk about them when you're ready, okay?


Mary: I think I would rather just eat some chicken enchilada casserole and then put on some chapstick. Maybe i'll follow it up with a twix.


Mom: Don't change the subject, Marigold. Don't be embarrassed. I've been trying to talk to you in the car for the last three years, but every time I try, you start talking about giraffes or the Softball Hall of Fame.


Mary: I'll just read the damn pamphlets. Let's not talk. I know you'd rather be watching Stevie Nix videos than doing this awkward  anyways.

The next day was sex-education day. I wore my best Limited Too t-shirt, rocking the no-belt-tuck into a pair of shorts I'd rolled up.

It started with a girl with a side-tail AND a headband making fun statements with the kind of enthusiasm I saved for a slip-n-slide (again, no pun intended) :

I SAW MY MOM TODAY!
I TOLD MY MOM THERE WAS SOMETHING A LITTLE BIT FUNNY ON MY UNDERWEAR!
MY MOM TOLD ME THAT BOYS HAVE PENISES!
I TOLD MY MOM I LIKED BEING A GIRL!
I STILL LIKE CHEF BOYARDEE EVEN THOUGH MY BODY FEELS MORE FUN!

Then there were some cartoons of genitals. Is there anything funnier in life than that? I know for a fact the people that made that video are still high-fiving and pushing each other into the bushes over the hilarity that someone took that movie seriously.

I didn't learn very much from any of the sources I was offered. I really didn't even understand how things worked until last year. I've been confused for a while.

I wonder where side-ponytail headband girl is now. I'm on a mission to find her. I'll keep you advised.

Please notice the shape of her earrings. I may have embellished