Location, Location, Location

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Porn.

Hey Emily! Why did you name it P.O.R.N. if there isn’t any porn?

Today, my friends, you’ll find out why.


I’m going to start by explaining my relationship with porn.

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STRIKE ONE

In fifth grade, the internet was becoming quite popular. Our school librarian caught on to the trend and made rounds of fifth and sixth grade classrooms, teaching us how to use the internet for research. Soon after, our teacher assigned us a theme project – we were to choose a note-worthy geographical feature, and prepare a short presentation, essay and visual display about it. I, being young and naïve, chose Mount Elbrus.

Now, pretend you’re playing Mad Gab and say that name out loud.


It certainly didn’t help that the mountains were actually in the shape of a giant rack.


So when I, little ten year old Emily, got online to find a model for my diorama of Mt. Elbrus, I did not just find the picture above. No. Instead I was inundated with image after image of twisted photography from those with brains so full of sex they had no room left for creativity.

I screamed, horrified and extremely disturbed, and my mother came running, deciding that maybe we should do the research together for the rest of the project. The next day in class, she told my teacher about what had happened, and they spent a good five minutes laughing hysterically while I glared at my classmates, in their unscarred, blissful naïveté, talking and playing as if the world hadn’t come to a crashing, confusing halt in the past 24 hours.


And it wasn’t over yet.


Now I actually had to make the diorama. I set up shop at my grandma’s house, where I stayed with my cousins, Adam and Cory, after school. Adam, being the eldest, was about to start middle school, and being an almost-middle-schooler, he was King of Innuendos. Once he saw what I was making, there was no hope left for my fragile mind.


By the end of the week, I had snapped.

I was no longer a little girl in a sheltered porn-free world. There were boobs out there. And apparently they were hilarious.


So when my teacher sat in the back of the room snickering throughout my presentation, I did not shrink in humiliation. No - I giggled along with her.

STRIKE TWO

As the internet exploded into more than just a research tool, commercials popped up between children’s shows announcing new websites for kids: Barbie fun found at Barbie.com! Watch Nick shows online at Nick.com! Interact with your American Girl doll on Americangirl.com! These commercials, though harmless themselves, were a glowing red path to danger.

During that following summer, I spent the night with my cousin Hillary. We made movies with my ancient video camera, played princesses and aliens, argued with her brother, and ate plenty of pop tarts. That evening we moved up to the attic so her parents and brother could sleep in peace. In the far corner of the room, their computer gleamed like an unwrapped toy.


In seconds we were online and plugging in the names of websites from the commercials. Barbie.com kept our attention for a while, Nick.com for a little more, but soon we were out of ideas. Then Hillary remembered a site her mom had shown her a week before, so we went there. The site was Fun for Girls, and it was at funforgirls.com. Hillary and I thought we’d finally understood this complicated website-naming business.


Apparently, whatever you wanted to see, you just added a “.com” to the end of the word.

We were not just on the glowing red path. We were fucking knocking on Danger's door.


Since we’d exhausted websites for toys and television shows, we decided to try our favorite bands. My favorite was A*teens.


A*teens.com is definitely NOT about the band.


Pop-ups of big titties were blasting at us like they’d already discovered Broadband. They came faster than we could click them closed, and though we desperately wanted to look away, the threat of her parents finding out what we’d done was a million times scarier.


By this point, the pop-ups had pop-ups and so many were flying at us that Hillary panicked and pulled the plug. We looked at each other for a moment in wide-eyed horror and then went back to playing dolls.

And thus my questionable taste in music ruined my little cousin’s innocence.

STRIKE THREE

In eighth grade my best friend and I volunteered at the elementary school’s Art Club. The children in the club were mostly fourth graders.


I know. Glowing red path.


For the spring session, we decided to make a series of murals along the preschool’s playground. One would be farm themed, another would have safari animals, one would take a look under the sea, etc. We split into groups and each chose an animal. Hillary (the best friend, not the cousin) and I begged the teacher to be in on the project, too, instead of just helping the kids. When she said yes, we decided to make a push-me–pull-you to add to the farm mural. A few of the younger students hadn’t seen the original Dr. Dolittle, so I jumped on Google.


I KNOW.


They clustered around as I typed the fated words into the search engine, eagerly awaiting this monstrosity that we bigger kids were so enamored with.


The preview of the image I picked looked innocent. Cross my heart, hope to die. In the thumbnail, it was a push-me–pull-you.

But when I clicked on it… it was a lot more literal… in the pornographic sense.

Hillary gasped and threw her hand over the screen as I hit the back button a million times and hoped to God the kids’ short attention spans were, for once, beneficial.


And they were, thank goodness. But my terrible luck with the Internet had corrupted yet another soul (another Hillary, even!). After Art Club, I apologized and told her about Strikes One and Two. Needless to say we stayed away from Google Image Search for a long time after that.

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So, WHY did you name it P.O.R.N. if there isn’t any porn?

I guess I didn’t answer the question after all.


But… isn’t it like a bajillion times better to be addicted to my P.O.R.N. than the porn that scars children, turns people into gross horny creepers, scars children, costs money, and SCARS CHILDREN?


PS: I am not very good with conclusions.

Dear Grandma

Recently I went to the zoo with my friends. It would have
been super-duper-fun if it hadn’t have been super-duper awkward. In order to tell you all about it and still keep things PG, I decided to write about the experience from the perspective of Jake, an eight year old who just visited the zoo with his dad. Enjoy!

Dear grandma,

Today Daddy took me to the zoo! We had a lot of fun. He says to tell you he won’t be taking me there during “Matey’s Season” anymore, but I think maybe he’s very tired, because we sure didn’t see any pirates there.

We did see some funny looking elephants though. One of them had five legs! But elephants are very nice. Instead of making fun of the five-legged one for being different, one of the mommy elephants gave him a hug! When I told this to daddy, a group of teenagers started laughing really hard. Teenagers are not as nice as elephants.

After the elephants, we went to the dolphin show. But it was not very fun. There was a baby dolphin in the tank and he didn’t like to be splashed, so the other dolphins were not allowed to do any big tricks.

Then we got a snack and watched the lemurs do yoga and give each other massages, and after that we went to see the giraffes! There were four mommies and only one daddy giraffe. It kind of reminded me of my friend Danny who has two mommies, only it was a lot more mommies and a daddy. That baby giraffe must have a lot of grandmas and grandpas living in Florida. If you see them at the zoo down there tell them he is doing very well.

The gazelle also had a lot of mommies and just one daddy. One of the mommies had a stinky bottom, though, because that daddy gazelle followed her around smelling it the whole time we were there.

Last we went to see the dessert animals! They were in a big round house that was very hot. At the end, I saw my favorite animals, turtles! They were trying to play leap frog, but the daddy turtle couldn’t get over the mommy turtle. He kept jumping up and down but he couldn’t get over her. I started to cheer him on, and daddy was very upset. I asked him why I couldn’t cheer them on, and he said it wasn’t appropriate. I asked him why it wasn’t appropriate, but then he pointed to a very pretty bird and so I went to look at that and forgot to ask him about why it wasn’t appropriate. I think I’ll ask mommy tonight though.

Also, I think when you and grandpa come for Christmas this year I would very much like a five-legged elephant.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO,

Jake

Off-Color Book

 

That One Time I Was Possessed

Before you read this post, I want you to know that I am a good person.
I promise this is the one and only time I ever tortured anyone purposefully. Unless you ask my cousin Lindsey, who claims we locked her in a car seat when we were tiny babes.
Whatever she says, IT DIDN’T HAPPEN.

So enjoy the post, and please don’t call the po-pos.

My friend Martha and I had just gone out to eat, and we needed to stop by her dorm to drop off left-overs before heading out to play zombie tag.

Yes, zombie tag. I judged it too before I played it, only now, not only is it super amazing fantasmagorical fun, but guess who’s going to survive the zombie apocalypse?

Anyways, Martha and I had to stop by her dorm. In order to get there, I had to turn left into a half-circle drive. For this one, you need a map.

Now, I promise that I am a safe, respectable, stereotype-breaking driver. But this was not my best moment. The four glasses of sweet tea I’d had were coursing through my veins like adrenaline mixed with crack, and the steak I’d eaten made me feel like an elderly llamaraptor: tired yet rabidly carnivorous.

So as I turned into the drive, I noticed a young man standing on the curb. Though my car was aimed no where towards him (red arrow), he saw my car hurtling straight for him (blue arrow). He took a step back and panic flooded his face.

What – like he didn’t trust a girl enough to not hit him?!

We locked eyes, and in the next millisecond, I was possessed by a demon.

The next thing I know, I’m overcome by the urge to scare the poop out of this guy.  Half of me screamed out that he was judging me for being a female driver. The other half, the possessed half, just really wanted to torture him. I swung my car so that I curbed it right in front of him, and he jumped ten feet in the air, even though he’d stepped back enough that I was already far from even grazing him.

From his new spot, we locked eyes again. I grinned devilishly. He looked exactly like a deer in the headlights, and I found myself laughing maniacally that the expression was coming to life before me.

I put the car in park and slowly became aware that Martha was staring at me anxiously from the passenger’s seat. Her eyes held a mixture of concern for me and for her own safety.

We stared at each other for a moment, silently.

“You could have gotten ten points, but I’ll give you five for trying.” she said.

It was too much. I burst out laughing, and she must have been possessed too, because she laughed harder than I did. It’s a wonder I didn’t ruin my leather seats after four glasses of sweet tea.

Nick the Awesome Aussie

A couple of years ago I went on a trip with the “Social Studies Club” (aka the club for people who wanted to travel overseas) at my high school. For two weeks we traveled New Zealand, Australia, and Hawaii.

We had the best tour guide EVER.

Aussie men are either drop-dead gorgeous or butt-ugly. And the nice thing is that the butt-ugly ones have the best sense of humor I’ve ever found in guys my age.

I want to be Australian.

Nick told the best jokes and he was drop-dead gorgeous. Why he was piddling away leading a group of American tourists instead of simply basking in his own glory, I’ll never comprehend.

I didn’t dare flirt with him, though.  I was awfully shy (I know, *gasp*); and there was the whole he was twelve years older than me thing.

Nevertheless, he made the bus rides worthwhile.

When we arrived in Sydney, we were two hours early. This is better than being late, except for the fact that our hotel rooms weren’t ready yet. The manager stashed our bags in a storage room and promised to keep them locked up until we returned from our tour of the city.

After the tour, Nick called the hotel and they were still short a couple of rooms. My small social studies club decided to separate from the main tour group that was headed back to the hotel so we could go to the SkyTower. Nick told us he would take our bags from the storage room and keep them in his so there was less chance of anything getting stolen.

My friends and I ended up going to a pub for dinner after the SkyTower, and on our way home we passed a grocery store, so we stopped in to pick up some fruit. Before the fruit section, though, we passed the cookie isle, where our need for Tim Tams replaced our fear of scurvy. We rushed back to our rooms to try out the Tim Tam Rush for ourselves. [We’re totally ruled by our stomachs.] It wasn’t for a couple more hours that we remembered that all of our bags were in Nick’s room.

No one wanted to miss out on more Tim Tam time – except for Jill and me. As much as we loved us some Tim Tams, we were more psyched about a chance to see Nick outside of the bus.

On the way up to Nick’s room, we met the child of one of the other tour group members, Sarah. She was headed up for the same reason as us, so I didn’t feel entirely bad about showing up super late.

Sarah walked straight up to Nick’s door and banged on it. She was his best buddy on this trip and I was pretty envious of her.  We heard him yell “one moment” and then he opened the door.



You would have thought that out of all of us, someone would have called ahead to tell him we were on our way.

Jill and I were speechless.

Sarah was not. She looked at Nick, crossed her arms, and said quite patronizingly, “Put some clothes on.”

Nick slammed the door shut before Jill or I could protest.

Five minutes later he opened the door, tossed out our bags, and slammed it closed again.

We couldn’t stop giggling for the rest of the trip.

Off-Color Feeding Time