“Semiformal” –even the word itself was foreign to me. Since childhood I associated “formal” with Sunday School and death grip ties and panic because what the hell shade crayon do I use for frankincense in my coloring book? My feelings were more split about “semi,” though. Semi-trucks were pretty cool, but semicolons, those were for dorky English teachers. Semisweet chocolate chip cookies and seminude people –both great without nuts. Semicircles were cool; they were like half a pie. I was an optimist. Also kind of pudgy.

Don’t get me wrong: I liked my mom. But my freshman year something had changed about her. She used to know me better than anyone; she had laid out my clothes for fourteen consecutive years. But for whatever reason she just didn’t get me anymore. I don’t know why –my adolescent mind was like, full of stuff and things. She couldn’t even generalize me correctly. One night I overheard her intimate to my dad that she was worried about me because I was such a “shy boy.” I wasn’t shy; I was pensive. And I wasn’t a boy –I was a freshman. Admittedly, that wasn’t much. Entering high school, I was only one of the terms in that cruelly contradictory compound word. But I certainly was no boy.

My mom wanted to pick out my tuxedo with me, but no thanks, I’m good. She meant well, I guess, but I had an epic night approaching –a potential game changer –and I’d be damned if it climaxed with my date fumbling with a pair of pants my mommy had picked out for me. So my mom waited in an SUV that smelled of stale hockey equipment while I boldly entered the Wearhouse for the first time.

“Spread your legs. Extend your arms. How does that feel? Fit good?”
“Yes. Feels great. I’ll take it!”
“That was quick. Okay, the total comes to $79.99.”
“Do you take American Express?”
“Yup.
“Here you go.”
“Thanks…Jane?”

When we got home I tried on the tux again and showed it to my parents. My mom told me I looked dignified. Not exactly the “sexual hurricane” look I was going for, but I took it. I tried on the tux every night for the next five days leading up to the big night.

My date for the semiformal was the hottest girl in school. Yeah, I’m aware of the irony. But, believe it or not, she was the one who asked me. It happened in the dining hall of my prep school, in between tacos #4 and 5. I was sitting, as I often did, in a seat that fell victim to a piercing angle of eye-level sunbeam. Typically these seats were the least desirable in the dining hall, but I sought them out because they gave me the illusion of feeling special, like I was anointed. Suddenly, though, a shadow fell across my face. I looked up to see that my golden sun had been replaced by a head of blond hair that shimmered majestically above me. Kelly beamed at me with a flash of flawless teeth, her soft face completely void of asymmetry, blemish, or taco meat. The blocked sun left a dark outline around an immaculate body that utterly dominated whatever clung to it, including the narrow green sweater so perfectly curved it could make an atheist believe in God.

At this point it was entirely unclear what prompted Kelly’s inquisition. Maybe she was impressed with the way I demolished ground beef. Maybe she heard I was getting an A- in algebra. Or maybe she needed more community service on her college application. I wasn’t concerned with motive at this point. All I knew was that super hot, fully developed Kelly approached me and my friends, who I swear had just left a second ago, and asked me to be her date. She was kind of giggling when she asked me. I was kind of shitting my pants.

The next day at school Kelly talked to me, which was the second time she had ever talked to me. She told me that we should obviously coordinate our outfits for the big night.

Obviously, I said.

She then told me her dress was red, but if I really wanted to match with the majority of her “look,” I’d get something the color of her skin.

We shared a giggle and I gave a wry smile, “I know what you mean…”

Much later that night, when I figured out what she meant, I shot out of bed, paced around my room, and performed pushups until I collapsed from exhaustion. This was how I passed my weeklong insomnia. A couple of days later my mom, somehow convinced that my life was her business, asked me if I was sleeping okay. She chose not to inquire about the mild grunts that slipped underneath my door each night.

When I wasn’t busy trying to out my hibernating pecs, I spent the nights leading up to the semiformal laying awake and thinking about Kelly. I played out the upcoming date dozens of times, my imagination saturated with a sensorial overload of best-case scenarios: the feeling of Kelly’s fingers interlocked with mine, the saccharine taste of her pink lip gloss, the straps of that red dress clinging to her shoulders, one of the red straps now slipping, slipping…

Of course, at 15 years old my lack of experience resulted in extended ellipses of imagination that proved infinitely more tantalizing than any concrete prognostication could ever be. It was almost too much for my mind and body to handle, and when I thought of Kelly I became fantastically aware of my autonomic functions. The maddening lack of synchronization between my palpitating heart and spasmodic breath was cruelly mocked by the confident procession of a bedside clock that ticked to three, four in the morning. When I thought of Kelly at night, I always closed my eyes. The rocking horses plastered on my wallpaper were judgmental assholes.

I was naïve when I was 15, though mature enough to understand when I needed advice for the semiformal. My mom, ever ready to answer questions I hadn’t even asked, was eager to offer terrible advice: “Be a gentleman. Be yourself.”

Fortunately, there were guys at my school who had better counsel.

“Don’t stare at her tits.” This from Ryan, the senior captain of my hockey team. He was old (19, having repeated a year), and therefore wise. His guidance was the type of practical advice I needed: a concrete objective. I had been myself for 15 years –clearly that wasn’t working.

Despite my nightly exercises in visualization, I was not mentally prepared for Kelly’s dress. When I picked her up for our date I failed Objective #1 promptly and prolifically, an embarrassing lapse that was, unfortunately, not an isolated incident. In fact, it was permanently documented by several candid photos taken throughout the night: Kelly and I standing there an infinite two feet apart, somehow the most notable bulging orbs the ones popping out of my eye sockets.

Despite my problems with Objective #1, I still had a shot with Objective #2, which, again, was the brainchild of Ryan, who was a regular patron of Mac Two’s Strip Club, and therefore an expert in feminine desires.

Unfortunately this objective, too, had gone horribly awry.

Ryan had explained that I needed to be bold, to stick out from every other guy, who were, as he put it, “way, way less awkward.” I was willing to try anything, especially if it made perfect sense, so I planned to make my mark of distinction by growing a beard. Hundreds of bristly follicles smattered across my rugged jowl, each packed with a healthy dose of audacity and masculinity. Yeah, that would be hot…

…In theory. What sprouted instead was a faint wisp of mustache, the kind that’s only ever seen in mug shots of sex criminals. Gillette quickly removed the molester out of my Kester, but now I needed to find a new source of daring individuality. That’s where my tux came into play.

Kelly had suggested a red vest and bowtie, but that was “playing it too safe,” according to Ryan, who drove his Honda Accord without a seatbelt and was therefore a certified pusher of envelopes. So I went with a purple sequin vest and matching bowtie.

It had looked good in Men’s Wearhouse, I swear. But now that Kelly and I were at the semiformal, something seemed amiss. The problem was the lighting. You see, when placed under the scrutiny of a bright light, my vest would explode in an indigo luminescence that made me look more bedazzled than bedignified. To make matters worse, friends armed with digital cameras would shoot flashes in my direction, only to have that beam of light multiplied and reflected back toward the room, scorching unsuspecting retinas with a violet sear. My patchwork, semi-metallic vest shimmered in a kaleidoscopic spectrum, not unlike a disco ball. Or the slimy scales of a trout, as Kelly aptly noted.

How did this go so terribly wrong? The tux was perfect when I tried it on at the Wearhouse. It made my shoulders look broad, and it came so highly recommended from Jean Paul, the peppy young tailor who assured me that it looked “positively fabulous.” Instead, I looked positively retarded, a sentiment that Ryan, who was the definition of trendy in his traditional black tux, made quite clear.

The theme of the semiformal was “Casino Night.” You got some fake cash and walked around with a clip-on bowtie and acted like you knew how to shoot craps while your date pretended to give a shit. Supposedly there was a prize for the couple who accumulated the most “money,” but I, frazzled from my tuxedo and still three weeks away from the probability unit in math class, lost our ration within 20 minutes. But wait…

Kelly reached into her cleavage, pulled out a folded stack of bills and handed it to me. We may not have covered probability in math yet, but we had learned the transitive property, and as I held the still warm roll of bills in my hand, I realized I had essentially just reached second base with Kelly. I then promply blew my wad on a hand of blackjack. Not content sitting on 15, I pushed my luck and hit, only to get busted by a queen.

There’s not much to do at a fake casino when you have no more fake money. So, against my better judgment, I tried making small talk with Kelly. Back then I had trouble talking to girls, as my skills were better honed for other pursuits, like drinking hot chocolate or imagining talking to girls. Somehow, though, I was doing alright. Kelly didn’t say much herself, but she was giggling a lot. In case you didn’t know, girls giggle when they are nervous. And they are nervous when they have a crush on you. I read that once in an esteemed medical journal.

Still, I had no clue just how well I was small talking until Kelly dropped the bomb:

“So, do you like, wanna get out of here?”

“Out of where?”

“Here…like this building.”

“No, I’m having a good time with you.”

Kelly giggled. “I meant with me, silly.”

Next thing I knew, Kelly had me by the wrist as she led me out of Casino Night, into the real night, and toward the empty, dark schoolhouse.

At a co-ed boarding school where members of the opposite sex are not allowed in each other’s rooms, couples must resort to other venues for their studies of human anatomy. I had never been in the schoolhouse after hours before, but I was well aware what types of things went down at night. There was often evidence at my first period classes, before janitors had the chance to clean up the discarded remnants of the teenage dream. You know when your mom would know you snuck in some late night candy because she found plastic wrappers on the floor the next morning? It was kind of like that, only way grosser and awesomer.

My heart was pumping at a surprisingly leisurely tempo, mostly because I was having an out-of-body experience. It sounds cool, but if my interpretation of what was about to happen was correct, I definitely wanted to get back in my body ASAP. I could almost see myself in the third person as we wandered the dark halls, the glow of occasional EXIT signs giving Kelly just enough light to guide me deeper through the halls, bringing me to her “special spot.” We were wary of a skulking security guard, so Kelly spoke in tense whispers while I responded with muted hyperventilation. Finally, Kelly stopped and, using the lapels of my coat as grips to help lift her up on tiptoes, she brought her lips next to my face. Sensation came rushing back to my body through an electrifying tingle that shot from ear to toes as Kelly leaned in close and breathed in my ear, “Let’s go in there.”
I turned my wide eyes to face the sign adorning the door in front of me.

MEN

****

Kelly’s soft blond hair fell loosely as she tipped her head down and scanned for ankles. There were none. The stalls were empty. We were alone.

“We should probably do this in the stall,” Kelly whispered.

A vague “this.” If I had made this grammar error in an essay, my English teacher would have taken off half a point. I had considered such syntactical scrutiny to be fastidiously picayune, or, as I more elegantly phrased it at the time, “fucking annoying.” A vague “this”? What was the big deal?

Now I understood.

There were two stalls in the bathroom: a handicapped and a regular. The handicap stall was about twice as spacious as the regular. It also had a railing, but let’s not get ahead ourselves. Surprisingly, Kelly pulled me into the regular stall. I was confused, but also mildly proud. Clearly, Kelly saw me as able-bodied.

While Kelly slid the metal latch through its keyhole, I hastily shifted my body to conceal a piece of graffiti that every boy in the school had seen dozens of times during their quiet moments of reflection on the toilet:

GARRET IS KELLY’S BITCH!

The declaration had been permanently etched into the stall partition –the communal Facebook wall for the school’s male population –and though I didn’t know this Garret dude (he graduated the previous spring), I had spent the year being insanely jealous of him.

I leaned against the wall and stared at my shoes. Now Kelly turned to face me. Now she took a step closer. Now her chest pressed tightly against mine. Firm, yet also remarkably soft and pliant, it yielded to my chest and made me feel powerful, sturdy, the mattress beneath the pillow. A feeling of profound, almost primal vigor swelled and pulsated through me. Kelly flicked back her hair, exposing her neck, bare and white, and even though Twilight was still just a time of day back then, my newfound courage almost compelled me to bring my lips to her neck. Almost.

Suddenly, a knock.

Kelly unlatched the door, swung it open. There stood Alicia, Kelly’s friend, high-heeled and smiling. No words were exchanged. She came in the stall with us. OhGodOhGodOhGod.

I had a hard time seeing what was going on –we were so cramped and Alicia had her back turned to me -but I could hear Alicia rummaging through her clutch. Then, against the uneasy hum of fluorescent lights, the distinct sound of plastic tearing.

“Thank god you brought this,” Kelly said to her. “You’re a life-saver.”

In response I should’ve said something like, “Actually, she’s technically a life-preventer!” but that would have required me to be witty and cool and not freaking the fuck out. Instead, I ran my left hand through my cow licked bangs, as if this cosmetic maintenance was the road less taken and would make all the difference. With my right hand I compulsively reached into my pants pocket and felt for a small felt bag. Earlier that night my mom had snuck me my dad’s special cufflinks, and she’d be pissed if I lost something so special in a bathroom stall.

Kelly looked at me with intense amber eyes and then broke from her whisper, startling me with the sudden directness of both her tone and words:

“You ready for this?”

No.

“Yes,” I said.

Okay, Eric. Relax…you’re prepared. Remember those monkeys at the zoo last summer? They figured it out, and you’re like, definitely smarter than they are, right? Right?

Despite this rousing pep talk from my inner conscience, anxieties stampeded through my brain. The primary concern at the moment was logistics. Yeah, I had seen movies and knew what pieces fit where, but there were three of us in a confined space. How was I going to make this physically work? Geometry wasn’t until next semester!

Alicia turned toward me and out of the corner of my eye I saw her toss a small piece of synthetic trash from her hand. A plastic seal fluttered clumsily to the ground like a wounded a butterfly, then settled peacefully in a pool of toilet water. An upside down “Absolute,” stamped in gold on the small round seal, sat in the center of concentric ripples.

Alicia took a swig from the seal’s progenitor, then handed the small vodka bottle to Kelly.

“I’m sorry, Eric,” Kelly said with heartbreaking earnestness. “You’re a really nice boy. But you’re just such an awkward date.”

She gripped the neck of the bottle and brought it to her lips with the authority of someone who’s done this before. She took a swig, swallowed, then made a face not unlike the one she wore when she first saw the purple bonanza that was my tuxedo.

Kelly lowered the bottle and, gently sliding her feet and hips forward while arching her slender shoulders back, leaned against the stall partition opposite to me. She stayed in that posture and looked at me entreatingly. “Do you want some of this?”

I almost laughed out loud. Just a few minutes earlier I was a panting, tail-wagging puppy, hopping in the trunk to go to an unknown, but assuredly awesome, location. Instead I was brought to the vet to get neutered.

I told her no, I wasn’t much of a vodka guy, as if I was a whiskey or gin guy instead.

No problem, she said. She and Alicia will have some more, then we can all head back to Casino Night. It’ll be fun. Yay.

I remember exactly how many shots of vodka Kelly took. The math, in my mind, was pretty simple. Since alcohol was a sterilizer, she needed seven shots to fully sanitize the wounds that I had inflicted through my awkwardness:

She needed two shots to get over my outfit. And maybe some future therapy.

A shot for each time our conversation fell to an uncomfortable silence, and I filled the still air by looking at the ceiling and quietly humming the chorus of Livin’ La Vida Loca. That happened on three occasions.

Another shot was required to forget our walk to the formal when I first picked Kelly at her dorm. Like a gentleman, I had stuck out my elbow at a 90-degree angle for Kelly to hold onto as I escorted her. When she didn’t grab it, instead of acknowledging the rejection and retreating my arm to my side, I kept walking with it protruding out, as if this was just my typical walking posture, as if looking like a teacup was cool as shit.

One shot was definitely needed to get over our formal Casino Night picture. I was not confident enough to put my arm around Kelly, so I posed for the picture with my arm hovering above her back, my limp hand resting lightly on her shoulder like a dead tarantula, if tarantulas had only five legs and sweated when they were nervous.

Finally, one last shot for Kelly to get over how hard I had been trying to sound impressive, using similes to describe every situation, like a desperate poet who uses similes like, all the time.

Seven swigs of raspberry vodka, all taken in the span of ten minutes. Thank god Kelly didn’t take a shot for every time she caught me awkwardly breaking Objective #1. This story would be a freaking obituary.

Kelly was a svelte girl, and 10 ounces of liquor coupled with an icy path made for a treacherous journey from the schoolhouse back to Casino Night. When we reentered the makeshift “Casino” together, a notable hush fell over the room. Within seconds a cluster of curious friends surrounded me.

“Dude.”

“Dude!”

“Dude.”

“How’d it go?”

“What was she like?”

“How’d you do?”

I shrugged. “I dunno,” I said coyly. “You tell me.” I pointed to Kelly as she staggered over to the snack table. She could barely walk.

Every face was washed over with astonishment and reverence.

“Oh. My. God.”

“You’re an animal!”

“You’re a legend!”

“You,” said one buddy, proudly placing his hand on my shoulder, “are the man.”

For a fleeting moment, that’s how I felt. I soaked up the attention, allowing it to fill up the very core of my being and drown a sadness that dwelled in the pit of my stomach. I could just feel people looking at me, respecting me, looking at me like I was a new person. So this was what it’s like, I thought. Freshmen, even sophomores, crowded around me. They couldn’t get close enough; it was almost like they wanted to reach out and touch me. After all, they were aware of the transitive property too.

But sadness didn’t wait until the end of the movie to come back from the dead and grab the protagonist by the throat. After a couple of minutes reveling in my faux popularity, I excused myself from my throng of admirers to find my date. I located her immediately by her flash of golden hair as she playfully flicked it to one side. She was walking out the door, holding the angled arm of Ryan, who drank NitroTech protein shakes and therefore had a good arm to hold on to. Ryan, who (I learned later) had a sophisticated sense of humor and thought it would be funny to get the hottest, most popular girl in school to ask her antithesis to Casino Night.

There’s not much to do in a fake casino with no fake money and no date and no happiness. There was only one thing I could do. My mom must have been pretty tired when she picked up the phone, because she didn’t even ask why I wanted to be picked up early.

I didn’t live far from school, so I only waited outside a few minutes before my mom pulled up. She didn’t say anything at first; she just put her hand on my shoulder. We began to pull away in an SUV that smelled of stale hockey equipment mixed with steam rising from the mug of hot chocolate in my cup holder. As we drove toward the exit, we passed two shadowy figures, arm in arm, making their way to the empty school chapel. The girl was in a tiny red dress, and her breath turned to smoky vapor in the February air.

“That girl is going to catch a cold,” my mom said.

“Semiformal” –even the word itself was foreign to me. Since childhood I associated “formal” with Sunday School and death grip ties and panic because what the hell shade crayon do I use for frankincense in my coloring book? My feelings were more split about “semi,” though. Semi-trucks were pretty cool, but semicolons, those were for dorky English teachers. Semisweet chocolate chip cookies and seminude people –both great without nuts. Semicircles were cool; they were like half a pie. I was an optimist. Also kind of pudgy.

Don’t get me wrong: I liked my mom. But my freshman year something had changed about her. She used to know me better than anyone; she had laid out my clothes for fourteen consecutive years. But for whatever reason she just didn’t get me anymore. I don’t know why –my adolescent mind was like, full of stuff and things. She couldn’t even generalize me correctly. One night I overheard her intimate to my dad that she was worried about me because I was such a “shy boy.” I wasn’t shy; I was pensive. And I wasn’t a boy –I was a freshman. Admittedly, that wasn’t much. Entering high school, I was only one of the terms in that cruelly contradictory compound word. But I certainly was no boy.

My mom wanted to pick out my tuxedo with me, but no thanks, I’m good. She meant well, I guess, but I had an epic night approaching –a potential game changer –and I’d be damned if it climaxed with my date fumbling with a pair of pants my mommy had picked out for me. So my mom waited in an SUV that smelled of stale hockey equipment while I boldly entered the Wearhouse for the first time.

“Spread your legs. Extend your arms. How does that feel? Fit good?”
“Yes. Feels great. I’ll take it!”
“That was quick. Okay, the total comes to $79.99.”
“Do you take American Express?”
“Yup.
“Here you go.”
“Thanks…Jane?”

When we got home I tried on the tux again and showed it to my parents. My mom told me I looked dignified. Not exactly the “sexual hurricane” look I was going for, but I took it. I tried on the tux every night for the next five days leading up to the big night.

My date for the semiformal was the hottest girl in school. Yeah, I’m aware of the irony. But, believe it or not, she was the one who asked me. It happened in the dining hall of my prep school, in between tacos #4 and 5. I was sitting, as I often did, in a seat that fell victim to a piercing angle of eye-level sunbeam. Typically these seats were the least desirable in the dining hall, but I sought them out because they gave me the illusion of feeling special, like I was anointed. Suddenly, though, a shadow fell across my face. I looked up to see that my golden sun had been replaced by a head of blond hair that shimmered majestically above me. Kelly beamed at me with a flash of flawless teeth, her soft face completely void of asymmetry, blemish, or taco meat. The blocked sun left a dark outline around an immaculate body that utterly dominated whatever clung to it, including the narrow green sweater so perfectly curved it could make an atheist believe in God.

At this point it was entirely unclear what prompted Kelly’s inquisition. Maybe she was impressed with the way I demolished ground beef. Maybe she heard I was getting an A- in algebra. Or maybe she needed more community service on her college application. I wasn’t concerned with motive at this point. All I knew was that super hot, fully developed Kelly approached me and my friends, who I swear had just left a second ago, and asked me to be her date. She was kind of giggling when she asked me. I was kind of shitting my pants.

The next day at school Kelly talked to me, which was the second time she had ever talked to me. She told me that we should obviously coordinate our outfits for the big night.

Obviously, I said.

She then told me her dress was red, but if I really wanted to match with the majority of her “look,” I’d get something the color of her skin.

We shared a giggle and I gave a wry smile, “I know what you mean…”

Much later that night, when I figured out what she meant, I shot out of bed, paced around my room, and performed pushups until I collapsed from exhaustion. This was how I passed my weeklong insomnia. A couple of days later my mom, somehow convinced that my life was her business, asked me if I was sleeping okay. She chose not to inquire about the mild grunts that slipped underneath my door each night.

When I wasn’t busy trying to out my hibernating pecs, I spent the nights leading up to the semiformal laying awake and thinking about Kelly. I played out the upcoming date dozens of times, my imagination saturated with a sensorial overload of best-case scenarios: the feeling of Kelly’s fingers interlocked with mine, the saccharine taste of her pink lip gloss, the straps of that red dress clinging to her shoulders, one of the red straps now slipping, slipping…

Of course, at 15 years old my lack of experience resulted in extended ellipses of imagination that proved infinitely more tantalizing than any concrete prognostication could ever be. It was almost too much for my mind and body to handle, and when I thought of Kelly I became fantastically aware of my autonomic functions. The maddening lack of synchronization between my palpitating heart and spasmodic breath was cruelly mocked by the confident procession of a bedside clock that ticked to three, four in the morning. When I thought of Kelly at night, I always closed my eyes. The rocking horses plastered on my wallpaper were judgmental assholes.

I was naïve when I was 15, though mature enough to understand when I needed advice for the semiformal. My mom, ever ready to answer questions I hadn’t even asked, was eager to offer terrible advice: “Be a gentleman. Be yourself.”

Fortunately, there were guys at my school who had better counsel.

“Don’t stare at her tits.” This from Ryan, the senior captain of my hockey team. He was old (19, having repeated a year), and therefore wise. His guidance was the type of practical advice I needed: a concrete objective. I had been myself for 15 years –clearly that wasn’t working.

Despite my nightly exercises in visualization, I was not mentally prepared for Kelly’s dress. When I picked her up for our date I failed Objective #1 promptly and prolifically, an embarrassing lapse that was, unfortunately, not an isolated incident. In fact, it was permanently documented by several candid photos taken throughout the night: Kelly and I standing there an infinite two feet apart, somehow the most notable bulging orbs the ones popping out of my eye sockets.

Despite my problems with Objective #1, I still had a shot with Objective #2, which, again, was the brainchild of Ryan, who was a regular patron of Mac Two’s Strip Club, and therefore an expert in feminine desires.

Unfortunately this objective, too, had gone horribly awry.

Ryan had explained that I needed to be bold, to stick out from every other guy, who were, as he put it, “way, way less awkward.” I was willing to try anything, especially if it made perfect sense, so I planned to make my mark of distinction by growing a beard. Hundreds of bristly follicles smattered across my rugged jowl, each packed with a healthy dose of audacity and masculinity. Yeah, that would be hot…

…In theory. What sprouted instead was a faint wisp of mustache, the kind that’s only ever seen in mug shots of sex criminals. Gillette quickly removed the molester out of my Kester, but now I needed to find a new source of daring individuality. That’s where my tux came into play.

Kelly had suggested a red vest and bowtie, but that was “playing it too safe,” according to Ryan, who drove his Honda Accord without a seatbelt and was therefore a certified pusher of envelopes. So I went with a purple sequin vest and matching bowtie.

It had looked good in Men’s Wearhouse, I swear. But now that Kelly and I were at the semiformal, something seemed amiss. The problem was the lighting. You see, when placed under the scrutiny of a bright light, my vest would explode in an indigo luminescence that made me look more bedazzled than bedignified. To make matters worse, friends armed with digital cameras would shoot flashes in my direction, only to have that beam of light multiplied and reflected back toward the room, scorching unsuspecting retinas with a violet sear. My patchwork, semi-metallic vest shimmered in a kaleidoscopic spectrum, not unlike a disco ball. Or the slimy scales of a trout, as Kelly aptly noted.

How did this go so terribly wrong? The tux was perfect when I tried it on at the Wearhouse. It made my shoulders look broad, and it came so highly recommended from Jean Paul, the peppy young tailor who assured me that it looked “positively fabulous.” Instead, I looked positively retarded, a sentiment that Ryan, who was the definition of trendy in his traditional black tux, made quite clear.

The theme of the semiformal was “Casino Night.” You got some fake cash and walked around with a clip-on bowtie and acted like you knew how to shoot craps while your date pretended to give a shit. Supposedly there was a prize for the couple who accumulated the most “money,” but I, frazzled from my tuxedo and still three weeks away from the probability unit in math class, lost our ration within 20 minutes. But wait…

Kelly reached into her cleavage, pulled out a folded stack of bills and handed it to me. We may not have covered probability in math yet, but we had learned the transitive property, and as I held the still warm roll of bills in my hand, I realized I had essentially just reached second base with Kelly. I then promply blew my wad on a hand of blackjack. Not content sitting on 15, I pushed my luck and hit, only to get busted by a queen.

There’s not much to do at a fake casino when you have no more fake money. So, against my better judgment, I tried making small talk with Kelly. Back then I had trouble talking to girls, as my skills were better honed for other pursuits, like drinking hot chocolate or imagining talking to girls. Somehow, though, I was doing alright. Kelly didn’t say much herself, but she was giggling a lot. In case you didn’t know, girls giggle when they are nervous. And they are nervous when they have a crush on you. I read that once in an esteemed medical journal.

Still, I had no clue just how well I was small talking until Kelly dropped the bomb:

“So, do you like, wanna get out of here?”

“Out of where?”

“Here…like this building.”

“No, I’m having a good time with you.”

Kelly giggled. “I meant with me, silly.”

Next thing I knew, Kelly had me by the wrist as she led me out of Casino Night, into the real night, and toward the empty, dark schoolhouse.

At a co-ed boarding school where members of the opposite sex are not allowed in each other’s rooms, couples must resort to other venues for their studies of human anatomy. I had never been in the schoolhouse after hours before, but I was well aware what types of things went down at night. There was often evidence at my first period classes, before janitors had the chance to clean up the discarded remnants of the teenage dream. You know when your mom would know you snuck in some late night candy because she found plastic wrappers on the floor the next morning? It was kind of like that, only way grosser and awesomer.

My heart was pumping at a surprisingly leisurely tempo, mostly because I was having an out-of-body experience. It sounds cool, but if my interpretation of what was about to happen was correct, I definitely wanted to get back in my body ASAP. I could almost see myself in the third person as we wandered the dark halls, the glow of occasional EXIT signs giving Kelly just enough light to guide me deeper through the halls, bringing me to her “special spot.” We were wary of a skulking security guard, so Kelly spoke in tense whispers while I responded with muted hyperventilation. Finally, Kelly stopped and, using the lapels of my coat as grips to help lift her up on tiptoes, she brought her lips next to my face. Sensation came rushing back to my body through an electrifying tingle that shot from ear to toes as Kelly leaned in close and breathed in my ear, “Let’s go in there.”
I turned my wide eyes to face the sign adorning the door in front of me.

MEN

****

Kelly’s soft blond hair fell loosely as she tipped her head down and scanned for ankles. There were none. The stalls were empty. We were alone.

“We should probably do this in the stall,” Kelly whispered.

A vague “this.” If I had made this grammar error in an essay, my English teacher would have taken off half a point. I had considered such syntactical scrutiny to be fastidiously picayune, or, as I more elegantly phrased it at the time, “fucking annoying.” A vague “this”? What was the big deal?

Now I understood.

There were two stalls in the bathroom: a handicapped and a regular. The handicap stall was about twice as spacious as the regular. It also had a railing, but let’s not get ahead ourselves. Surprisingly, Kelly pulled me into the regular stall. I was confused, but also mildly proud. Clearly, Kelly saw me as able-bodied.

While Kelly slid the metal latch through its keyhole, I hastily shifted my body to conceal a piece of graffiti that every boy in the school had seen dozens of times during their quiet moments of reflection on the toilet:

GARRET IS KELLY’S BITCH!

The declaration had been permanently etched into the stall partition –the communal Facebook wall for the school’s male population –and though I didn’t know this Garret dude (he graduated the previous spring), I had spent the year being insanely jealous of him.

I leaned against the wall and stared at my shoes. Now Kelly turned to face me. Now she took a step closer. Now her chest pressed tightly against mine. Firm, yet also remarkably soft and pliant, it yielded to my chest and made me feel powerful, sturdy, the mattress beneath the pillow. A feeling of profound, almost primal vigor swelled and pulsated through me. Kelly flicked back her hair, exposing her neck, bare and white, and even though Twilight was still just a time of day back then, my newfound courage almost compelled me to bring my lips to her neck. Almost.

Suddenly, a knock.

Kelly unlatched the door, swung it open. There stood Alicia, Kelly’s friend, high-heeled and smiling. No words were exchanged. She came in the stall with us. OhGodOhGodOhGod.

I had a hard time seeing what was going on –we were so cramped and Alicia had her back turned to me -but I could hear Alicia rummaging through her clutch. Then, against the uneasy hum of fluorescent lights, the distinct sound of plastic tearing.

“Thank god you brought this,” Kelly said to her. “You’re a life-saver.”

In response I should’ve said something like, “Actually, she’s technically a life-preventer!” but that would have required me to be witty and cool and not freaking the fuck out. Instead, I ran my left hand through my cow licked bangs, as if this cosmetic maintenance was the road less taken and would make all the difference. With my right hand I compulsively reached into my pants pocket and felt for a small felt bag. Earlier that night my mom had snuck me my dad’s special cufflinks, and she’d be pissed if I lost something so special in a bathroom stall.

Kelly looked at me with intense amber eyes and then broke from her whisper, startling me with the sudden directness of both her tone and words:

“You ready for this?”

No.

“Yes,” I said.

Okay, Eric. Relax…you’re prepared. Remember those monkeys at the zoo last summer? They figured it out, and you’re like, definitely smarter than they are, right? Right?

Despite this rousing pep talk from my inner conscience, anxieties stampeded through my brain. The primary concern at the moment was logistics. Yeah, I had seen movies and knew what pieces fit where, but there were three of us in a confined space. How was I going to make this physically work? Geometry wasn’t until next semester!

Alicia turned toward me and out of the corner of my eye I saw her toss a small piece of synthetic trash from her hand. A plastic seal fluttered clumsily to the ground like a wounded a butterfly, then settled peacefully in a pool of toilet water. An upside down “Absolute,” stamped in gold on the small round seal, sat in the center of concentric ripples.

Alicia took a swig from the seal’s progenitor, then handed the small vodka bottle to Kelly.

“I’m sorry, Eric,” Kelly said with heartbreaking earnestness. “You’re a really nice boy. But you’re just such an awkward date.”

She gripped the neck of the bottle and brought it to her lips with the authority of someone who’s done this before. She took a swig, swallowed, then made a face not unlike the one she wore when she first saw the purple bonanza that was my tuxedo.

Kelly lowered the bottle and, gently sliding her feet and hips forward while arching her slender shoulders back, leaned against the stall partition opposite to me. She stayed in that posture and looked at me entreatingly. “Do you want some of this?”

I almost laughed out loud. Just a few minutes earlier I was a panting, tail-wagging puppy, hopping in the trunk to go to an unknown, but assuredly awesome, location. Instead I was brought to the vet to get neutered.

I told her no, I wasn’t much of a vodka guy, as if I was a whiskey or gin guy instead.

No problem, she said. She and Alicia will have some more, then we can all head back to Casino Night. It’ll be fun. Yay.

I remember exactly how many shots of vodka Kelly took. The math, in my mind, was pretty simple. Since alcohol was a sterilizer, she needed seven shots to fully sanitize the wounds that I had inflicted through my awkwardness:

She needed two shots to get over my outfit. And maybe some future therapy.

A shot for each time our conversation fell to an uncomfortable silence, and I filled the still air by looking at the ceiling and quietly humming the chorus of Livin’ La Vida Loca. That happened on three occasions.

Another shot was required to forget our walk to the formal when I first picked Kelly at her dorm. Like a gentleman, I had stuck out my elbow at a 90-degree angle for Kelly to hold onto as I escorted her. When she didn’t grab it, instead of acknowledging the rejection and retreating my arm to my side, I kept walking with it protruding out, as if this was just my typical walking posture, as if looking like a teacup was cool as shit.

One shot was definitely needed to get over our formal Casino Night picture. I was not confident enough to put my arm around Kelly, so I posed for the picture with my arm hovering above her back, my limp hand resting lightly on her shoulder like a dead tarantula, if tarantulas had only five legs and sweated when they were nervous.

Finally, one last shot for Kelly to get over how hard I had been trying to sound impressive, using similes to describe every situation, like a desperate poet who uses similes like, all the time.

Seven swigs of raspberry vodka, all taken in the span of ten minutes. Thank god Kelly didn’t take a shot for every time she caught me awkwardly breaking Objective #1. This story would be a freaking obituary.

Kelly was a svelte girl, and 10 ounces of liquor coupled with an icy path made for a treacherous journey from the schoolhouse back to Casino Night. When we reentered the makeshift “Casino” together, a notable hush fell over the room. Within seconds a cluster of curious friends surrounded me.

“Dude.”

“Dude!”

“Dude.”

“How’d it go?”

“What was she like?”

“How’d you do?”

I shrugged. “I dunno,” I said coyly. “You tell me.” I pointed to Kelly as she staggered over to the snack table. She could barely walk.

Every face was washed over with astonishment and reverence.

“Oh. My. God.”

“You’re an animal!”

“You’re a legend!”

“You,” said one buddy, proudly placing his hand on my shoulder, “are the man.”

For a fleeting moment, that’s how I felt. I soaked up the attention, allowing it to fill up the very core of my being and drown a sadness that dwelled in the pit of my stomach. I could just feel people looking at me, respecting me, looking at me like I was a new person. So this was what it’s like, I thought. Freshmen, even sophomores, crowded around me. They couldn’t get close enough; it was almost like they wanted to reach out and touch me. After all, they were aware of the transitive property too.

But sadness didn’t wait until the end of the movie to come back from the dead and grab the protagonist by the throat. After a couple of minutes reveling in my faux popularity, I excused myself from my throng of admirers to find my date. I located her immediately by her flash of golden hair as she playfully flicked it to one side. She was walking out the door, holding the angled arm of Ryan, who drank NitroTech protein shakes and therefore had a good arm to hold on to. Ryan, who (I learned later) had a sophisticated sense of humor and thought it would be funny to get the hottest, most popular girl in school to ask her antithesis to Casino Night.

There’s not much to do in a fake casino with no fake money and no date and no happiness. There was only one thing I could do. My mom must have been pretty tired when she picked up the phone, because she didn’t even ask why I wanted to be picked up early.

I didn’t live far from school, so I only waited outside a few minutes before my mom pulled up. She didn’t say anything at first; she just put her hand on my shoulder. We began to pull away in an SUV that smelled of stale hockey equipment mixed with steam rising from the mug of hot chocolate in my cup holder. As we drove toward the exit, we passed two shadowy figures, arm in arm, making their way to the empty school chapel. The girl was in a tiny red dress, and her breath turned to smoky vapor in the February air.

“That girl is going to catch a cold,” my mom said.

Hey Greg,

As you’ve probably seen in the letter from the freshmen’s dean office, it looks like we’ll be roommates this year. I’m excited to meet you on campus next week. In the meantime, I thought we might want to coordinate our communal furniture. Here’s some stuff we’ll probably want for the room:

-A futon
-A mini fridge
- A TV/ TV stand
- A DVD player

Am I forgetting anything?

-Dave

toilet paper.

Greg,
Good to hear from you. And yeah, we’ll obviously get toilet paper as we need it. I was thinking more along the lines of furniture. Any ideas?

Naw. Just plenty of toilet paper. I’m talking that real soft, triple quilted kind that feels like an angel is breathing her soft, angel breath on your ass, evaporating all that’s ever been bad in this world. So none of that cheap rough stuff. My girlfriend hates that shit (pun intended lol!)

Also, can I get the top bunk?

P.S
I don’t go by Greg. All my buddies from home call me Dump Truck.

Hey Dump Truck…

Duly noted on the toilet paper. And yeah, you can take the top bunk. I actually prefer the bottom anyway.

Awesome, man. When I was a kid at summer camp no one EVER let me take the top bunk, so I really appreciate it. I just hope the mattress is big enough to fit a 370 pounder! (500 lbs when you include my girlfriend!)

That reminds me. We should probably figure out a way to indicate when one of us needs some “privacy” with the ladies. I mean, you’re welcome to sleep in your bed when my GF visits, but you may want to hang somewhere else at that time. She’s into some weird stuff.

Oh yeah, I thought of something to add to the list of things to get for the room: a video camera.

Tell me a little bit more about your girlfriend. How often do you expect her to visit? I only ask because I have a girlfriend, too, so maybe we can work out a rotation on the visits.

Man, my girlfriend is awesome –you’ll love her. We met this summer standing in line for the port-a-potties at a concert for The Infernal Hell Monkeys. I let her cut me in line, and the rest was history.

She won’t be visiting that often. She has a commitment every other night, so she’ll be visiting Monday-Wednesday-Friday. (Probably a good thing…I don’t think I’d be able to keep up with her every day! Dump Truck would run out of gas).

Can’t wait for you to meet her…just don’t ever touch her. I can get violently jealous (just ask my parole officer). Also, her prescription skin cream hasn’t arrived yet. So seriously, don’t touch her.

She sounds like quite a girl. Actually, her schedule works out perfectly, since my girlfriend volunteers at Darren Hospital every other night and can only visit me Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday.

You’ll barely notice her when she’s here…she’s really quiet and reserved, so don’t be offended if she’s shy around you. I’ve been dating her for three years and she’s still not totally comfortable opening up to me, so I imagine she’ll be extra timid around you.

Whoa! Dude! MY girlfriend volunteers at Darren Hospital TOO! Ask your girl if she knows Kayla. She’s tall, blonde hair, super hot and loves peanut butter, snorkeling, and webcams. Also, she’s totally exhausted every Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday morning. LOL! And she’s a real talker –always complaining about her pansy ex boyfriend. Glad I’m not that kid.

Weird…my girlfriend’s name is Kayla, too. Kayla Mealey. I’ll ask Kayla is she knows Kayla.

Dude, go to the pharmacy right now and get “Lotrimin Ultra Anti-Fungal Skin Cream.” Trust me.

After that, do me a favor and jump off a bridge.

It’s important for me, as a writer, to read a lot. I read books by the world’s best authors so I can pick up new techniques for my craft, and to make sure people like Stephenie Meyer aren’t plagiarizing me. Mostly, though, I read because I need to keep track of my competition and stay up to date on market trends. Recently, my empirical research has shown that, if I want to obtain unimaginable wealth, I should be writing a bestselling book about wizards, or vampires, or wizards who are also vampires. This is a cause for concern, considering my strategy the last few years has been to write a free blog about nothing in particular. But what can I say? I can only listen to my inner muse, and my inner muse happens to be lazy.

I’ve been encouraged by a lot of people lately to make the switch to an eReader, the lovechild of my two favorite things, books and technology. I’ve put a lot of thought into the matter, but I just can’t bring myself to abandon old-fashioned books in favor of a Kindle or an iPad.

I must admit, there are times when I’m tempted to buy an eReader. I’m attracted to its slender size, which makes it far more portable than some books. I’m currently reading Mark Twain’s autobiography, which is exactly a bajllion pages long. The meteor that killed the dinosaurs was smaller than this titanic hardcover. This causes a serious problem when travelling, because in order to cram the cement block into my suitcase, I usually have to jettison one of my sneakers. Do I want my trip marked by wit or level footing? I’ll usually choose the shoe over the book, which explains why I’ve read the latest edition of SkyMall 29 times.

So yes, thick books can be annoying for travel, but eReaders have their own problems. Take the iPad, which has an iBooks application among its myriad other iFeatures. I have one, but I can’t read books on it. There are just too many distractions on the iPad, and it’s hard to make progress on a book when I constantly receive notifications that Grammie has emailed me another YouTube video. Sorry, Mr. Salinger, Holden Caulfield may be a compelling character, but he ain’t no kitten getting stuck in a pickle jar. The iPad also has problems with glare, and the reflection on the screen can be really irritating while reading. I don’t know about you, but I prefer not to look myself in the eye as I read Snooki’s book.

Call it pretentious if you will, but I like filling my shelves with the books I’ve read. It’s kind of like a hunter putting stuffed animal heads up on his wall. Sure, books don’t put up as much of a fight as a moose, and sure, most of my conquests take place on the toilet instead of the wilderness, but still I’m proud of each book I’ve completed. I want you to walk into my apartment and notice the amount of books I’ve vanquished, and not the smell. I want you to marvel at how culturally refined I am, and wonder how I possibly had the time to read all 22 volumes of the Peanuts Anthology.

According to legend, Prometheus was a Titan back in the era of Ancient Greece (after dinosaurs, before Twitter). All Titans were freaking jacked because, let’s be honest, the League of Immortals didn’t test for steroids yet. But Prometheus had some brains to go with his brawn, and one day he deceived Zeus and stole fire from him. He then gave it to the mortals, because shit was getting cold down there and Snuggies simply weren’t getting the job done.

Zeus, as I’m sure you’re aware, was the Father of the Gods. But I bet you didn’t know he was also the Uncle of Overreaction, and he punished Prometheus for his little prank by chaining him to a rock so an eagle could eat out his liver. The liver would magically grow back every day and the eagle would return, his appetite for foie gras never satiated. The daily torture was excruciating, and Zeus gave this punishment a time limit of eternity, just to be a dick.

By now you’ve surely realized that this article is about how much I hate shaving. This daily torture is easily the worst part of my day, and this is coming from a guy who lives on the 5th floor of a walk-up apartment building. I probably would never shave if it weren’t for my parents, who like to subtly hint that they prefer me cleanly shaven by saying they love me a lot less when I have a beard. Sometimes I’m tempted to say “screw it” and live my life as an orphan, but usually I do what I’m told and dutifully shave off my beard. This is what happens when a 25-year-old still wants an allowance.

Women simply don’t understand how annoying it is to shave your face. They’ll complain about your beard, saying stuff like, “Your stubble hurts my face when we kiss” and, “Shouldn’t you shave? I’ve been telling my friends that you’re a banker and not a writer.” So you shave, and then they complain again, because “why is your face all red and irritated like that?” Oh I don’t know, maybe it’s because on your orders I just spent ten minutes scraping my previously adorable face with RAZOR SHARP BLADES.

Despite dropping a figurative napalm strike over your entire face, you always miss a spot or two. This usually means that you positioned your razor at the wrong angle, since your insolent stubble goes in all different directions, kind of like this blog post. You go back in the bathroom to fix it, but you don’t put on more shaving cream, because screw that. Next thing you know you’ve got a microscopic cut that doesn’t stop bleeding for three and a half hours.

The back of the razor box tells you that, in order to avoid cuts like this, you need to always use a fresh, sharp razor. It makes literally no sense, but since I have no sense myself, I follow their directions and pick up more razors. Too bad the typical pack of razors costs more than the street value of meth. Only bankers can afford it, and as we’ve already established, I’m only a writer who specializes in entrails and ranting.

By the time I’ve gotten over the torture and horrors of shaving, it’s time for bed. Then, like the liver of Prometheus, my facial hair magically grows back overnight. What have I done to deserve an endless punishment like this? I’ve never stolen fire, or any element for that matter. In fact, the only thing I’ve ever stolen in my entire life was a pack of razor blades.

As with 75% of stories involving babies and crotches, this tale takes place in a Dunkin’ Donuts. It was a weekday morning, and I headed over to D-Squared for my usual large hazelnut coffee with milk (skim, because I care about my health) and extra sugar (because I don’t really care about my health). As a writer, my morning coffee is absolutely essential because the caffeine injection really helps me stay alert and focused as I stare intensely at a blank computer screen for hours on end.

This particular Dunkin’ Donuts was totally packed today. Fortunately most of the customers inside had already ordered and were crammed off to the side as they waited impatiently for their breakfast sandwiches to heat up in nuclear-grade microwaves. The actual line to order, which was partitioned off by rope dividers to form a narrow alley to the register, was practically empty. I couldn’t believe my luck –apparently I just missed the big rush.

I had barely stepped through the front door when an available cashier looked my way and shouted, “May I serve the next customer please!” A knot of anxious anticipation formed in my stomach -it was my turn, my time to shine. I swiftly approached the partitioned lane, that Golden Brick Road to Java Jubilation, but then stopped suddenly in my tracks. There in front of me, blocking my path to the register, was a goddam baby.

Now, this baby wasn’t just chilling out on the floor playing with a rattle or Twitter or whatever babies do these days –if he was, I probably would’ve accidently stepped on him and this blog post would have an entirely different tone. He wasn’t waiting in line to order, as far as I could tell. He just sort of sat there in silence, wedged in a stroller like a watermelon in a shopping cart.

The problem, you see, was that this stroller had the approximate size and durability of an army tank –there was no way I could walk around it, especially with the horde of customers waiting on either side of my lane. Even worse, the baby’s mother was about 20 feet ahead, placing an order at one of the registers and totally unaware that this dude (me) was looking at her child with growing irrational anger.

“May I serve the next customer please!” The free cashier waved at me again, desperation growing in her voice as a crowd of new customers were now standing behind me, waiting for me to proceed ahead.

It’s a question that’s been debated for centuries, and I was faced with it now. Are you allowed to move someone else’s baby? I could’ve grabbed the stroller and given it a little push –just the slightest nudge –out of the way and released this distressing bottleneck of caffeine-deprived customers. After thinking about it for a moment (I even went as far as looking for the release lever for the stroller’s wheel-lock), I decided I couldn’t risk moving that baby. If it started crying, and I was seen pushing the stroller, I would have a mess on my hands that could involve the authorities. Even worse, I probably would have to leave without my coffee.

“MAY I PLEASE SERVE THE NEXT CUSTOMER!!” The cashier was about ten seconds away from losing her shit. I was left with no other choice, so I proceeded to swing one leg over the stroller, trying to climb over it the way you might get over a waist-high fence. I was midway through the action when the baby alarm system blasted the room with a piercing shriek.

“WAAAAHH WAAAAHH WAAAAHH!!!”

I should’ve kept going, but I froze mid-climb. The mother spun around to see me, an unshaven twenty-something with a multiple ketchup stains on his sweatshirt, straddling her crying baby’s stroller.

Suddenly, coffee wasn’t so important –to me or the mother. She ran to the stroller to accost me, but by the time she got there, I was back out the door, running for my life down the street, headed toward the next closest Dunkin’ Donuts, half a block away.

People told me not to go to Mexico for vacation. “Don’t go to Mexico for vacation,” they said. “The country has seen a huge spike in violence over drug cartels. Now even Americans have been targeted and killed, and if that’s not bad enough, the water tastes funny.”

My friends and family seemed adamant, but I still wasn’t sure what to think, so I turned to the source I trusted most: the Internet. It explained that Mexico was crazy dangerous right now, riddled with gangsters and crooked cops, and a CNN.com report told me that if I went to Mexico, I likely would come back without a head. I agreed that this was probably the case, but there was a $100 trip cancellation fee, so off I went.

When I arrived at the Cancun Airport, I was on high alert for suspicious characters, and oh boy, were there a lot of them. It seemed like every person I walked past looked at me and said, “Buenos dias!” which translates, roughly, to “I have a weapon!” I made sure to avoid eye contact and completely ignore them, because it’s never safe to assume that people from other countries are as tolerant and accepting as Americans like me.

My hotel arranged a ride from the airport. The driver was the quiet, suspicious type who smiles and asks how your flight went. He took me to my resort, and I was so relieved that he didn’t rob me that I tipped him with all the cash in my wallet.

The hotel was actually quite nice –it was right on the beach and boasted many of the luxuries I’ve come to expect from fancy American hotels, like mini shampoos. I wanted to hit the beach right away, so I slapped on SPF 50 sun block (I had read that after people, UV-rays is Mexico’s most dangerous killer) and sprawled out on the sand for some much-needed R&R. It’s kind of tough to have a vacation, though, where your primary goals are to relax and not get murdered.

Luckily, I soon discovered that reports of Mexico being hazardous and inhospitable are exaggerated and inaccurate. The hotel staff, for instance, was incredibly welcoming and friendly. One day at the beach, the hotel bartender approached and gave me a drink in a hollowed out coconut. At first I was wary. What was this mysterious coconut concoction? Was it dangerous? The wooden tip on the stem of that novelty mini-umbrella looked awfully sharp. I took a hesitant sip, only because I thought if I didn’t the man might attack me, and my only protection was a pair of trendy sunglasses. You can imagine my excitement when I discovered that this drink was A) delicious and B) rum-based. I proceeded to suckle it down with alarming focus and efficiency.

Everyone bent over backwards to make me feel comfortable, which I appreciated. The hotel staff, bless their hearts, would make an effort to speak English to me. In return, I would speak Spanish to them. I didn’t have to, but I’m a college-educated American and felt responsible to lead by example and be a good ambassador for my country.

“Mr. Kester, we have a policy at the hotel that you must wear a shirt and shoes in our restaurant. Also, we tend to recommend a three drink limit, so perhaps you should put down that coconut.”

“No problemo!”

My name is Eric Kester, and I had the great misfortune of standing behind you in line at the supermarket. It may come as a surprise to you that I exist, as your leisurely pace and blatant disregard for those in line suggests you believe you are the only person living in this world. I was very much present, however, and I would be remiss to not point out several of your actions that provoked a range of unpleasant emotions from those behind you, from twinges of impatience to thoughts of suicide.

There were several factors that contributed to your unbearably slow checkout process, but perhaps the most influential was the sheer number of items in your cart. You purchased enough groceries to feed a small army*, though I assure you there are precious few instances in life that require 54 packs of string cheese. Maybe you have many children to feed, as suggested by your tired, sunken eyes and the industrial-sized packs of diapers in your cart. But I’ve noticed your preference for discounted frozen burritos, and I have to wonder if those receptacles aren’t actually for you. Regardless of your personal situation, it would have been nice if you recognized that I had only 11 items to your 262 and allowed me to step ahead of you –a common courtesy for a lowly bachelor who’s just trying to get by in a cruel world governed by 10 items or less.

*If you are, in fact, an army general acquiring rations for her troops, please accept my apology and disregard this letter.

The most egregious moment of your checkout process occurred just as the clerk was scanning your last remaining items. In an apparent epiphany, you suddenly realized that you neglected to pick up a third box of Teddy Grahams. You declared that you had to go back and procure this item, implying with the urgency of your voice that failure to do so would yield cataclysmic consequences. You then forced the entire line to wait as you waddled back into the aisles to pick up another box –a move that was, to be perfectly frank, complete bullshit. One would think that since you already acquired two boxes of crackers you would know exactly where to go for a third, but your journey took so long that some of us in line would have started to worry about your safety, had we not hated you.

My final complaint about your checkout behavior regards your actions after all your items were finally scanned. While most people would have utilized the time they stood in line to take out their wallets and prepare a method of payment, you seemed caught off guard when the clerk announced your total, as if it never occurred to you that this mountain of food might actually cost something. You stood agape a moment before opening your purse, digging through that dark chasm like an amateur archaeologist hunting for ancient treasure. You found many things –lipstick, a tampon, another box of Teddy Grahams –but you couldn’t seem to recover any form of American currency. It was a transcendent moment when you finally discovered your credit card –a miracle I would have been happier about, if I wasn’t busy suppressing murderous intentions.

I wasn’t altogether surprised when you couldn’t figure out how to use the self-swipe credit card machine. Typically I would be astounded at anyone who had difficulty operating such a simple and increasingly prevalent piece of technology, but during our extended time together I had concluded that you had the approximate I.Q of a beach ball. After the credit card machine humbled your intelligence, you pulled out your checkbook, but of course you did not have a pen.

Maybe at this point you’ll remember me –I was the guy who offered you a pen. In fact I gave you the very pen I used to write this letter, which I composed, edited, and redrafted while waiting in line behind you.

I knew that Amanda liked me; that much I surmised after my super stealth mission on AOL the week before. Employing a trick I had used on girls in the past, I IM’d Amanda using my alternative screen name. She THOUGHT she was talking to Kevin, a mysterious new boy who just moved to town from Idaho, but she was REALLY talking to Eric A. Kester, that sneaky genius!

NewKevOnTheBlock: ya, i like it here so far. still trying 2 find some awesome new friends who are wicked good at sports and also hilarious…i’ve heard some good things about this Eric dude. what do you think of him? on a scale of 1-10 plz.

Manders85: eric kester? ya, he’s great.

NewKevOnTheBlock: 1-10 plz.

NewKevOnTheBlock: ???

Manders85: oh jeez…i dunno. 8 I guess?

NewKevOnTheBlock: k thx bye

NewKevOnTheBlock has signed off.

It was some real Encyclopedia Brown type shit. Unfortunately, my bravado abandoned me now that I was sitting on the park bench next to Manders85, our legs almost touching but not quite. We were in the final moments of what I was pretty sure was an actual date, which in the 6th-grade meant getting ice cream and talking about Third Eye Blind. I wasn’t thrilled with how things had been going to this point –I promised myself not to brag about my baseball cards, and here I was now demonstrating the way Ken Griffey Jr. wore his hat in his rookie card. I began to move on to Cal Ripken’s rookie card when suddenly Amanda grabbed my ice cream cone, and with her gaze locked upon my disbelieving eyes, she took a lick of my mint chocolate chip. Though I was only twelve, I had a decent understanding of how sex worked, and I was pretty sure we just had it.

“Amanda…you’re cool.” Not the most eloquent comment, I realize, but I needed a topic sentence before diving into my thesis. “I…I like you.”

“I know.” This was said with the same indifference as when I told her “I like baseball cards” a couple minutes prior, but that was okay. I wasn’t expecting a big reaction yet. At this point I was merely plucking at her heartstrings lightly, a maestro of romance delicately crafting a crescendo leading up to my grand finale. “That’s not all…” I leaned forward in my seat, elbows resting on knees, and tilted my head up, my gaze and words now hanging onto the horizon, summoning the dramatic power of Beyond.

Silence. A drip of melted ice cream. A deep breath.

“Amanda, I like like you.”

It was the #1 news story of the week, even ahead of Timmy Thompson, who had accidently whipped off his bathing suit doing a front flip at Heritage Pool. That was awesome, my friends uniformly agreed, but this was even awesomer. Eric had dropped the double-L bomb on Amanda Howard, a real live girl.

“Like like.” This little alliteration, or consonance, or anaphora, or whatever rhetorical device you want use to impress hair-bunned English majors, was what the middle school dating scene was built around. You could simply “like” a girl, of course, but that affection was prosaic, no different than “liking” your mom’s lasagna. But if you like liked a girl…well then, that shit was real. Like liking a girl was a huge deal, an overt admission that maybe your childhood declaration of “girls = jerkheads” was a bit premature. Like liking was Step One of your metamorphoses from child to adolescent to sexually aware teenager, and it meant that soon getting “cooties” would involve a trip to the urologist. Most importantly, it meant that you were more relevant and interesting than Timmy Thompson’s wiener. Of course, we didn’t understand that this little phrase contained a double dose of a magical word whose multifaceted meaning would carry more weight than any other letter combination of our young lives. We had no idea that “Like” would become the one word that most singularly defines our generation.

My 4th-grade teacher, Mrs. Finney, hated the word “like.” Along with “stuff,” and “kind of,” “like” fell under the genus of “fuzzy words.” I recall my panic when she first told us this, because up to that point whenever my parents’ friends asked me about myself, my go-to move was to tell my shoelaces that “I kind of like stuff.” But I wasn’t the only person who latched onto this word. For kids and adolescents, “Like” was the most popular word in school. He was the first word picked at recess, he gave wedgies to Thus, and he hung out with Cool, smoking cigarettes under the bleachers. The thing is, we only loved “Like” because we didn’t really have a choice. When attempting to express affection for something, we would reach deep into our lexicon, and “Like” was all we found.

Despite our laconic expressions, there were complex feelings stirring behind our various affections. These emotions were blurry and distorted, but still slightly perceptible, like those adult cable channels we didn’t subscribe to. Frustratingly, these ineffable feelings degenerated on their trip from mind to lips, before ultimately excreted as a single, four-letter word. We desperately wanted to express these underlying emotions –somehow they seemed so crucial to our identity, to really understanding us –but “I like ______” was our only way of communicating elaborate feelings that were still fuzzy in our developing minds. A profound endearment, for instance, like the joy of collecting cardboard memories of summer soaked moments with Dad, was simply converted into “I like baseball cards.” And how can a kid possibly sum up the overwhelming joy of a roller-coastered, cotton-candied, mind-blowing carnival? This poor kid didn’t stand a chance:

And if we really liked something (or someone, in most cases) all we could do was double that magic word, like popping in a second piece of gum for an extra blast of flavor. I was aware of “love” when I was twelve, of course, but Third Eye Blind told me that love is “feeling like I could die, and that would be alright.” Dying wasn’t high on my list of things that were “alright,” so I knew I didn’t love Amanda. But I did know that thinking about her freckles, about her cute lady bug rain boots, about the way she giggled at my unfunny jokes, twisted my stomach into knots –a strangely wonderful feeling in my belly that couldn’t be replicated even by my mom’s famous lasagna. But I didn’t have the eloquence, confidence, or introspection to express these advanced feelings to Amanda. So like thousands of smitten middle schoolers, I turned to Old Reliable and asked him to work a double shift.

Like trans fat and birthday parties, the word “like” will always be something that kids love and adults hate. Parents everywhere would cringe when we somehow used the word “like” five times in a single sentence about passing the milk. It was like, we couldn’t like, speak expressively or something. In these instances we used our favorite word entirely differently than the “I like baseball cards” sense, but ultimately its purpose was the same: to substitute for the indescribable. Here we used “like” as a placeholder for where we knew more descriptive thoughts should be. But this wasn’t just a matter of limited vocabulary. It was a matter of not having the ability to truly know ourselves, recognize deeper feelings, process them into words, and then communicate our essence. It was like, so annoying.

Though adults couldn’t grasp our vague, like-centric language, our peers certainly could, and Amanda sat in stunned silence as the second “like” fluttered from my lips and through the park. It was a bold move, I knew, but thanks to my Internet espionage, it was a move I was confident would pay off. It better pay off…her mom was supposed to drive me home later.

Amanda was taking her time to respond, probably deciding whether we should make out now or later. Finally, she spoke.

“Eric, I like…

……..

……..

don’t like like you.”

In this case the vagueness of “like” was probably a good thing. My fragile heart was spared the probable explanations behind the rejection: that my cracking voice was sometimes higher than hers, that my black and orange Halloween braces weren’t the “chick magnet” my orthodontist claimed they’d be, that it was a bad move making Amanda pay for her own ice cream cone.

As my generation moved onto high school and college, our dependence on that fuzzy word “like” waned. Many of us found Love. Most of us discovered ourselves. We found new words and phrases to reflect who we are more precisely. But this past year “like” has made a major resurgence, returning to our vernacular with quite a splash. “Like” is a little different now –he’s got a new haircut to go along with a fancy new job –but we’ve embraced our old friend like we never abandoned him to begin with. I’m talking about, of course, the Facebook “Like” button.

When the “Like” button first appeared on Facebook, users employed it exclusively as a way to support and congratulate their friends. I saw a picture of my buddy Gary crushing a two-story beer funnel, so I clicked “Like.” Gary, here’s the fist pound you would’ve gotten had I actually been there. When I saw that Timmy Thompson had changed his status to “In a Relationship,” I and 24 others immediately click “Like,” because it’s a borderline miracle that Timmy “Small Johnson” Thompson got a girl to date him.

Soon the Like button spread outside of Facebook, nestling itself into exactly 3.2 kajillion websites. You can “Like” pretty much anything now. Over 200,000 people “Like” “I Like Turtles.” 469 (presumably lonely) guys “Like” YouPorn.com. Zero people “Like” this article, but that will change once my parents learn how to use Facebook. Profiles and newsfeeds are now inundated with things that you and your friends “Like.” We’re obsessed with labeling anything and everything with our personal stamp of approval. When I logged onto Facebook after Osama Bin Laden was killed, the “Top News” in my newsfeed was “Alex Merchant likes Rocky Road Ice Cream.” So why do we feel so compelled to “Like” things on Facebook, compulsively clicking that little button like we’re thumbs up junkies? Why does Alex want 600 people to know that he’s a fan of Rocky Road? It’s because, once again, we have no choice but to have “Like” portray the ineffable and lend some definition to our identity.

In the age of social media, we are increasingly defined by our Facebook profile. The average young adult will have hundreds of Facebook “friends,” but most people consistently hang out with only a few dozen friends. So while you build actual relationships with these friends, the remainder (and vast majority) of your Facebook community is left to analyze and “know” you through nothing but your profile. It’s a scary thought, knowing you’re being judged and “understood” by such bite-sized nuggets of media –a few picture albums, a relationship status, maybe some 140 character tweets. We know that there’s so much more depth to us than can be seen through a two-dimensional profile picture, but how can we possibly show it? You’re not going to go online and type out 2,000 word essays about your thoughts and opinions. Only freaks do that. Instead, you tell us what you Like, because everything you Like is a small reflection of who you are. Alex “Liking” Rocky Road isn’t exactly a window into his soul, but it’s a puzzle piece that gives me a slightly better understanding of his whole. It’s by no means a perfect system (Facebook won’t let me click “Like” twice on Amanda’s profile picture), but it’s an effective way to add some scraps of identity to people who do, in fact, exist outside their Facebook page.

So too all my nebulous Facebook friends: please keep Liking. I’ll take any piece of information that may give me a sense of what you’re really like.

I’ve had an iPhone 3G for a couple years. I had a great run with that phone, but while watching the big iPhone 4 press conference this spring, something strange happened. I looked deep into Steve Jobs’ eyes, blacked out for about 15 minutes, and by the time I came to my senses, I had a confirmation email from Apple congratulating me on preordering the iPhone 4. It was time to move up in my life (for a guy living at home with his parents, such moments are hard to come by) and man, am I glad that I did.

Let’s start with one of the biggest upgrades in this iPhone iteration, one that Apple has really been emphasizing: The iPhone 4 is an entire 3.5 millimeters thinner than the old models. This is a BIG DEAL. Finally, I no longer have to wear cargo pants every time I want to fit my iPhone into my pocket! Sure, it may not sound like a big difference, but I can’t tell you how many times I thought “Man, if only my iPhone 3G were three and a half millimeters thinner, I could fit this gum wrapper into my overstuffed pocket.” Instead the wrapper would just end up on the ground as litter. As you can see, the iPhone 4 will save the planet.

There are also major improvements to the iPhone’s operating system. “Multitasking” is now possible, allowing you to use your nifty apps simultaneously. It’s about time I can use Google maps while texting while driving! And now there’s an easier way to organize all your apps more efficiently: folders. This genius design trick, which Apple cleverly borrowed from every computer ever made from 1987 onward, allows you to arrange your app icons into specifically marked folders. Put your “Pandora Radio,” “Sirius XM,” and “Shazaam” apps into a folder marked “Music.” Toss your “Enormous Boobs,” “Boob Party” and “Boob Party Lite” apps into a folder labeled “Lonely.” It’s great!

Wait, those last two features are available to old iPhones through a simple software update? Shit.

Maybe the best part of the iPhone 4 is the improved display. The screen utilizes a new technology called “Retina Display”, which adds four times the number of pixels, yielding a much sharper image. According to Apple, there are actually more pixels than the human eye can even detect. So if someone’s eyes aren’t refined enough, there’s a chance they won’t even see that you called them an asshole in your last text message.

The enhanced screen is complimented by an upgraded camera system. There is now a flash, which is supposed to be a good thing, but I assure you it is not. Everyone knows the best part of having a camera-phone is taking stealth pictures of awkward people doing embarrassing things, then sending these images to your friends. The old “look like I’m sending a text message when really I’m taking a several pictures of that weirdo” trick. But now with the flash it’s like, “Hey! I’m taking a picture of you, obese man struggling to get on a bicycle!”

In addition to the regular camera, there’s also a new front-facing camera. This camera is used in the new “FaceTime” feauture, where you can do live video chat with someone through your phone. Here’s an example of what you would see if you had the misfortune of FaceTiming with me:

Notice the incredible quality of the HD camera, how it really does a good job exposing every last imperfection on my face. FaceTime is cool, but not as practical as you would think. Holding the iPhone up while you talk gets pretty tough, as your outstretched arm begins to burn in 1 to 3 minutes, depending on how often you do Olympic shoulder circuits. The most comfortable and natural way to use FaceTime is to hold the iPhone down by your lap and talk. Most people do it this way, but I’m not sure it’s the most flattering of angles. You be the judge:

Overall, the iPhone 4 is a tremendous piece of techonology. It even comes in white, for all you contrarians who would love to go against the establishment by getting a different color of a phone that 50 million people already own. So I would recommend the iPhone 4 to literally everyone I know. Sure, there’s that small, minor, totally insignificant problem where you lose reception when you do certain stuff like holding it in your hand, but really, who uses a cell phone to make calls and check emails, anyway?