a story and conversation repository (est. 2000)

1986 ( 18 Years Old )

my mom shook up our household pretty good when she began a new job with the centers for disease control. in a move to improve her career path, she entered an experience-based program that would allow her to get promoted within the government ranks. her first post brought her to saint louis where she began serving as a public health advisor, specifically dealing in sexually transmitted diseases. pretty cool, huh. yeah, pretty cool as long as it's not your mother we're talking about.

a typical day looked something like this. while my mom drove into work listening to talk radio, some guy across town wakes up and heads to the can to take a leak and screams as the urine begins traveling through his urethra and out of his body. hours later he's in the free clinic asking why he's pissing blood and razor blades. a disinterested doctor would calmly inform him it was because he had the funk, made some notes on a clipboard and told him to see the nurse in the next room. the nurse would then share some information and make her own notes and tell him to see the field worker in the next room. my mom was that field worker.

my mom would then ask this individual who all he's done the deed (any deed) with over the last 90 days. this dance was usually the same, they don't know or don't remember but are too dumb to lie very well so clues to the truth are left for the enterprising. my mother was then tasked with locating the participants of this fellow's lucky streak informing the hes and shes in his life that they've had relations with someone who has been diagnosed with a case of the funk and it would be in their best interest to seek like treatment lest their funk grow to uncomfortable states. now, again, i know this all sounds fun and adventurous but remember, it's my mom dude.

another fun thing mom got to do pretty regular was give presentations to little funk-free tikes about the evils acts of wild abandon create. she quickly learned that they had little interest in listening to this middle-aged woman who is my mom so she began enhancing her delivery with visual aids. many a night the dearmitt living room found my mom pouring though short stacks of white bordered medical slides, holding them up to the light before dropping them into the gray carousel.

i knew to stay clear but guests in the home did not. one friday night some friends came by to pick me up. after jawing a bit, we were heading out, through the living room, only to hear my mom say "ok boys, watch those penises tonight or this might happen to you." before any could protect themselves she would click a button and a photo of some unfortunate bastard's gnarled, pustulating, half-gone member wallpapered our living room wall. at the sight of this manroot, tall as a circus dwarf in its projected state, the unwilling movie-goers would fall to the ground and wheel about like vampires looking into the eye of the sun.

if she only knew how unfortunately sad we were to the fairer sex and that not even women in this advanced state of atrophy would give us the time of night, she may have spared us this conditioning.