1. When Buying a Nut Cup

It’s the 7th grade, and you just realized that the guys who bring their father’s porn on the bus aren’t joking. You really do have to go out and buy something large, plastic, and conical to shove down your spandex shorts if you want to play on the baseball team. They call it a “nut cup.” Dad is only good for Twins games and the occasional trip to the lumber store. So, you ask Mom. She goes with you to the sporting goods store. You try to lose her in the aisles. But, she finds you and then speaks loudly to the cashier: “Are these the protective cups?” And then while hoisting one off the shelf, “Oh, ok, I see. Well what SIZE do you need?”

2. Buying Jeans in Front of a Hot Chick

You’re jeans shopping at the J.C. Penny’s and boy you’re excited. There’s a pretty blonde clerk behind the counter in men’s wear. You pick out a nice pair of Lee’s, long straight leg, roomy in the seat so you can sag ‘em like the guys at school, and you proceed into the changing room. Then you hear that awful sound: “Why don’t you come out here?” And in front of that pretty blonde clerk, you stand straight like a sentry in front of your mom as she grabs the back of you pants and says clear for all to hear, “Well, they look nice, but how do they fit in the crotch?”

3. Getting Turned on By TV

It’s approximately the 4th grade, you’re watching Zach kiss Kelly on Saved By The Bell, and the in-studio audience all oohs and awws and gasps. You don’t know why, but this excites you. You’re having a moment. Then, like out of nowhere with a basket of laundry, your mom swings around the corner of the living room, killing the mood, and saying, “You know, sex is a beautiful thing made by God to be between two married people.” She leaves you in the dark room. Staring blankly at the screen.

4. Nocturnal Emissions

It’s the 8th grade, for some odd reason your mom has decided to remove you from Wednesday night religious ed classes and teach you one-on-one. Things are more or less uneventful till you reach the sections on noctural emissions. It’s then you wonder if God has invented religion solely to make you start doing your own laundry—or at least your bedsheets.

5. When Ladies Call on the Telephone

It’s approximately the 5th grade and girls have decided to call the house. It’s Saturday morning, you’re vacuuming, and your mom, stern-faced, hands you the phone. “I don’t know who it is,” she says. The girls speak excitedly, and your mom listens on the other end. Then to your horror, she says, “Dunstan, you’re going to need to finish that vacuuming, thanks for calling girls.” Then she scolds you on and says outloud to your younger brother, “The next thing he’ll be doing is kissing, my God.” This phrase will remain in your brain for the next 32 years. You will never date. You will never be fully-naked in a mirror for more than .2 seconds. You will eat Tuesday nights by yourself at Denny’s.

-Dunstan McGill

Image from Slow Down Mom