We Don't Speak About the "Antique"

Okay. So before we get into this post, I have to add a little disclaimer - if you are easily offended, a member of the clergy, a stalkery weirdo, my neighbor, my brother, or my former elementary school teacher, you might not want to read this. Might I suggest you click on over instead to read about when my husband compared me to a silverback gorilla? Or maybe this list of crappy things I did as a kid, which are obviously contributing factors to some very bad parenting karma.

Alrighty then. Moving forward.

I have ... a toy. Of the adult variety. You pickin' up what I'm layin' down?

Okay, good.

It's actually like a decade old. Way back eons ago, when Curtis and I were young and crazy and childless and living in Germany, I agreed to host a party. You know, like those Pampered Chef or Thirty-One or Mary Kay parties ... except with plastic penises and weird flavored gels and edible underwear.*

*Although I looked at those edible undies up close once and they're like a fruit roll-up (or fruit leather or whatever you call it. Who wants to eat a fruit roll-up with pubes stuck in it? And, like, there's nothing sexy about the way anybody chews a fruit roll-up. NOTHING. But I digress.

Unfortunately, I ended up getting sick like an hour before the party began. So I ended up missing the whole thing, staying quarantined inside our bedroom with a trash can at my bedside, while Curtis graciously hosted. Which is how we ended up with this photo.

Yes. That is exactly what you think it is.

He looks weirdly enthusiastic, doesn't he?

Anyway, he ended up being such a wonderful party host that the products sold like hotcakes. And because of that, I got to pick something for free. Soooo ... a big blue sparkly motorized rotating penis it was.

Fast-forward to a few years ago, when our oldest son Colin was about five. We had just rearranged our bedroom closet and he was rummaging around in some stuff when suddenly I heard a frantic buzzing sound, followed by an incredulous "Whoa!"

And my heart practically stopped beating as I whirled around to find, er, "Big Blue" in all his spinning, vibrating glory, clutched in my son's hands. "What's this?" Colin asked in delighted amazement.

"It's - an antique," I said as vaguely as I could manage, snatching it away from him. "It's, uh ... I'll just put this away." I prodded him toward the closet door, shutting him out as I buried Big Blue on the highest possible shelf, behind a bunch of junk.

"What's an antique?" I could hear his little voice asking from outside the closet.

I don't remember what I told him. But apparently it made an impression. Because a few days ago, we were at my mom's, and I was joking about this ceramic cat that she bought in the eighties and still decorates with:

I remarked that if she kept it much longer, it was going to be considered an antique.

To which Colin, now nine years old, replied, "Hey, like your antique!"

I was puzzled; I don't own any antiques. "My what?" I asked.

"You know," he said, with an edge of exasperation to his voice, like he couldn't believe I didn't know what he was talking about. "Your antique? The blue thing that makes a buzzing sound and spins all around? Whatever happened to that thing? Can we get it out and play with it?"

Oh. Mah. Gah.

My son was asking about my vibrator, of which he knows nothing except that it was a really cool contraption. And "an antique."

"Oh, that?" I said nonchalantly, dying a little inside. "I think I threw that away years ago."

Except, y'all? I didn't really.

But I might now.




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