Once again I’m participating in Friday Flashback created by the lovely Her Bad Mother and also the quite lovely Sweetney. And, as usual, I’m late to the party. What’s new?

This week’s theme is “what story about yourself would you never tell you child?” Oh I have so many. It was hard to me to come up with something since I’ve already told you about taking my mom’s car out by myself, shoplifting and assaulting a guy with paper. Surely there couldn’t be anymore secrets.

On a side note, it’s posts like these that keep my mom and dad coming back for more on this here blog. Ever since my mom heard I took her car out before I had a license (and then yelled at me because “I could have lost my insurance” even though it was fifteen years prior) she’s been reading religiously. But this post? This one’s for Dad.

For this week’s embarrassing story, which will make my dad squirm I will never tell my children, let’s go all the way back to 1989 (back in the time of disco according to my teenager…and he wasn’t even kidding) when I was a fifteen-year-old high school sophomore. My best friend Rachel (who is no longer a friend at all, but that’s another story) and I lived just a few houses from each other. On this dark and starry night I was hanging out with Rachel at her neighbor’s house…a boy named Jay (but that has really nothing to do with this story). The neighbors across the street (older boys) were having a party. One of the boys, nineteen-year-old Bob, came over to apologize for being so loud and to tell us we could come over and party if we wanted to.

Rachel and I were intrigued so we decided to head over for a bit. There had to be at least thirty to forty people at this party. There were a lot of older kids from our school (because the younger brother, Jim, was a junior at our school) and a lot of young adults who were friends of Bob. We felt pretty darn special being lowly sophomores at this upperclassmen and adult party.

As with most parties where parents are out of town, the alcohol was flowing. I was throwing back wine coolers like they were strawberry milk. But I tried to pace myself since I had to be home by curfew; 10pm.

Just before ten we left to go back to my house. Rachel was going to spend the night.

After my parents went to bed (around midnight ’cause they were old :)), Rachel and I snuck through the hall, past my parents bedroom, down the stairs and out the patio door in the back. I left the door open just a smidge because even back then I had paranoia about everything and was worried that somehow the lock that is hard to lock when you are trying would miraculously lock on its own and we would have to ring the doorbell when we came back. Then we would have been totally busted.

We ran back over to Bob and Jim’s house. By this point, everybody was pretty drunk and we had a lot of catching up to do. Being just fifteen, I had hardly ever drank in my entire life. So (1) I thought it was really cool that we go to drink with these older kids and (2) I got drunk easily.

After several more wine coolers and some very stiff mixed drinks along with a few glasses of beer, I was pretty hammered. For some reason some of the party guests were lighting the stove to light their cigarettes. The electric stove. Who knew that would light a cigarette? Not me who had also never smoked before that night.

After somebody lit their cigarette and turned off the burner they said, “Get back. It’s still hot.” They were talking to my drunk ass because I was dangerously close the hot stove. Like any good drunk does, I said, “It’s not hot” and proceeded to place my hand right on the burner for a good couple of seconds.

It really didn’t feel hot. But that was the alcohol playing a cruel trick on me.

After a few minutes my hand started to hurt a little bit. I looked down at it and there, on my hand, were the curved lines from the burner. I had a pretty nice burn on my hand. And now it hurt like hell. Bob got me some ice and held the ice on my hand for me. I continued to complain about how my hand hurt. All night long.

And that’s how Bob and I started dating. It’s amazing that relationship didn’t work out since we met under such wonderful circumstances.

Check out some other great blogs who also spilled the beans:
Her Bad Mother
Mrs. Flinger
Izzy Mom
Mamalogues

This entry was posted on Friday, April 18th, 2008 at 9:57 pm and is filed under Misty watercolor memories. Comments are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.