It was in a Wendy’s, after school, on a Wednesday night.
I don’t know what happened in my brain, but everything about me that was timid and shy disappeared in an instant and I leaned over the table and kissed her.
She later married the guy she dated after me.
You ever have one of those days where it feels like you’ve woken up in the Twilight Zone, a land beyond reality where everyone hates you, and everyone that doesn’t know you well enough personally to hate you is simply acting as a rogue agent of a cruel and senseless universe, gleefully bringing chaos and destruction to the world? Today was totally like that.
Seriously, I’m never going back to that Taco Bell.
There’ve been times here on the blog when I’ve made a remark or two about how I essentially left my childhood wholly unprepared for the adult world. My parents were never exactly the ‘sit-down-and-impart-wisdom’ type of parents, but it wasn’t until I hit eighteen and left home pretty much for good that I realized how little I knew. About anything. From finances, coping skills, interacting with others, cooking, the law, allll the way over to what the clitoris was for, I was more or less left to find this stuff out on my own — especially that last part. I don’t know if my parents had wanted to let me learn about the world in my own way, or maybe just didn’t actually know much about the world to begin with, but I feel that I entered reality with a knowledge deficit.
Except for one thing.
There was one thing, one bit of information, a tiny single piece of advice that I was taught time and time again by my parents that embedded itself so deeply in my mind as to occur to me constantly, even in completely inappropriate circumstances. No matter how much head trauma I suffer, no matter how many drinks I have or how many times my brain implodes upon hearing someone praise “Fight Club,” I will never forget perhaps the single most pounded-in nugget of wisdom that my parents gave me:
“Don’t eat the red berries.”
See, there were these bushes at the end of my neighbor’s yard, with tiny red berries on them. Red berries that I should under no circumstances ever, ever try to eat, no matter how much they looked like little cherries, or how many animals I saw munching on them. Those are bird berries, not people berries. If I eat the red berries, I will get very, very sick. They are like poison to people, even if birds eat them and are fine.
So as an adult, as I struggle financially, emotionally, philosophically, and clitorically, I can’t help but wander by fruit stands thinking, “Hm. Red berries. Not people berries.”
Sometimes I’m surprised I made it to my late twenties.
As you all have noticed, he’s back. Our dearly beloved Retropolitan is back. On behalf of Andy and I, I’d like to say thanks for the opportunity to almost completely guest-blog NOTHING. Something about Nazis and robots, indeed.
Andy will humbly accept your undying appreciation; I’m angling for the affection. I’ve got your dirty nurse right here, brother.
And now we hand it back to The Retro, who definetly has some ‘splaining to do.
My undying affection and appreciation once again goes out to my guest bloggers Andy and Mr. Lady, who filled yet another of my absences with a rousing tale of something with robots and Nazis and not quite as much hardcore nurse ‘erotica’ as I would’ve liked. I don’t know how I would be able to continue my mysterious journeys without you guys.
Seriously, though, next time throw in something with nurses.
Naughty nurses.
