Those Mysterious Little Creatures

I was just talking on the phone to my friend Marci Benton and for some reason the conversation steered towards her upcoming annual OB/GYN appointment.  She mentioned how sometimes complications can arise down there with an abnormal Pap test.  Not usually, but you never know.  I said:  “Yeah, they’re mysterious little creatures.”  That cracked us both up for some reason, and then it got me thinking about the very first time I encountered one of those mysterious creatures as a teenager.  It was attached to a beautiful neighbor girl named Holly Owen.

I did not lose my virginity that time, and thank god…I was completely clueless and had no idea what I was doing.  This was back in the early 80’s when stuff was a lot hairier.  I mean, a lot hairier.  Let me give you an example.  I have a friend named Glenn Kampson who fondly tells the story of the night he was with a girl who was so hairy that when he was down there, he fell asleep.  Granted they had been drinking, but he actually laid his head down and fell fast asleep on the ample pile of soft comfortable hair that was in front of him.  He woke up to her poking him in the head asking him: “WTF?!”.  It was an unfortunate situation, but very understandable if you know Glenn, who is one of the funniest men in America.

So I remember my first time down there being a lesson in terror and uncertainty as I knew I was going to have to figure out what was imbedded in all that hair.  Sure I had seen pictures, but when actually confronted with a real live one right in my face I was scared shitless.  So much hair, so little experience.  I was as happy and excited as any normal red-blooded pubescent male could be, but what was I supposed to do?  I squinted hard and tried peering through all the hair but could see nothing that afforded me any clue as to what was going on in there.  Should I go high, low, right in the middle?  I did not want Holly to know that I had never been there before so I was going to have try and fake my way through this.  I steeled my resolve and got down to business.  I figured I wouldn’t taking any chances of missing the spot or spots I was supposed to hit, so I took my index finger and started poking anywhere there was hair.  Poke…poke…poke…poke…

After a minute or so of this I felt Holly move so I looked up to see if she was by now lost in sexual rapture at my prowess.  But she was not writhing in ecstasy.  She had propped herself up on her elbows and was staring at me like I was retarded.  She had a confused, somewhat sad look on her face.  Wait…maybe that’s how girls look when they are completely overwhelmed by pleasure??  Probably not.  As I continued poking I looked at her face for a sign that I was doing something right.  C’mon, help a guy out.  Something, anything.  There?  Is that good?  I anxiously implored her face for a clue or some positive sign.  Nope, nothing.

It was clear by now from her scowl that she was not having any fun and I was probably just annoying her.  I could tell she wanted me to do it right and I so badly wanted to do it right as well, but I didn’t even know what ‘right’ was?  I needed to retreat.  Regroup.  Get a safe distance away.  Back to the classroom.  But after spending a lifetime of trying to get into this exact position, I was not ready to give up yet.  I started frantically poking anywhere and everywhere now hoping to hit pay dirt…but eventually she just slowly shook her head, grabbed my hand and asked me to please stop.

It was over.  I was done.  My career as a stud had ended almost before it began.  How do you ever recover from such a complete and utter disaster as that?  It was a stunning defeat and I hoped this would never get out to my friends.  Fortunately, her inexperience kept her from realizing how much I completely sucked at this.  We knew something was horribly wrong but we did not know how to fix it, so we got dressed and pretended like nothing happened.

Eventually that summer we got up the courage to try it again though, with more and more success each time.  Of course there were some setbacks in the coming months...most notably the time Holly's large, menacing, extremely protective father came home early from his job at the liquor store that he owned.  In the words of Bob Seger, Holly and I were ‘working on our Night Moves’ when suddenly we hear the garage door opening.  What?!  Holy sh*t!  We froze and stared at each other in horror as we listened to his car pull into the garage.  I have to get out of here! 

We were upstairs in her bedroom so Holly bolted for the bathroom and I ran naked with an armload of clothes down the hallway to the split level staircase leading to the lower levels.  Half-way down the stairs was the entrance door from the garage, then the staircase did a 180 and the 2nd half of the stairs led to the lowest level.  From the top of the stairs I could hear him just on the other side of the door about to come in.  I could turn around and go hide back in Holly's room, but if I wasn’t home in time for dinner my parents would worry and I certainly didn't want to be trapped in there all night.  I decided I had to go for it and ran down the stairs towards him.  I passed the door and made the turn just as he came in and headed up the stairs to the upper level.  We were literally on the same staircase at the same time with him going up and me going down, but I made it to the bottom safely.  

I was far from being in the clear however.  I was still standing completely nude in the house of a card-carrying NRA gun enthusiast who was calling out to his beloved daughter letting her know he was home.  I heard her yell from the bathroom that she was about to take a bath.  I couldn't tell which was louder, my heart pounding in my chest or his heavy footsteps walking around on the floor above me.  Fighting the mixture of panic and adrenaline I gently eased open the sliding glass door leading to the back yard and made a run for my bicycle which was leaning up against their above-ground pool.  Still naked I grabbed my bike and pushed it around to the back side of the pool and crouched down low, all the while hoping he didn't happen to be looking out the back window.  I got dressed, threw my bike over the 6-foot high fence, climbed over after it, and then peddled as fast as my legs would go through the neighbor’s yard and headed for home, again hoping nobody was seeing any of this.

That was 30 years ago and I still have not figured out those mysterious little creatures. Since the dawn of time when that first horny cave-man tried to get with the cute little cave-girl who lived down the street, we have been trying in vain to figure out these creatures and the people they are attached to.  Wars have been waged, battles have been fought, and lives have been lost.  Large sums of money have been spent, countless songs have been written, and sturdy hearts have been broken.  They will drive men crazy and make us do inexplicit, incredibly stupid things at great risk.  But all that matters very little to the average male and I am no exception.  I was right back at Holly's house the next day after her dad came home.  My never-ending quest for knowledge and enlightenment on the subject continues to this day and my persistence is unwavering…just ask my poor wife.