It’s a long ride between Toronto and Brockvegas, where I grew up.
When I was 13 I started to occasionally accompany my dad on business trips into Toronto. At that age I was ready to escape the bizarre conservatism that the town’s parents exuded and the boring, “lets get drunk every night” attitude my high school chums demanded I enroll in. Toronto was an “otherworld”, a safe haven where my hidden gay desires could be “not so hidden” and I would beg my dad to take me along with him, if only to sit in a hotel room in a large metropolitan city for a day.
As I said, it was a long ride, especially before everyone in Ontario collectively decided that 120kph was the unofficial legal limit (I doubt cars could sustain that limit for long, back then). It took under 6 hours with rest stops as opposed to the manic 4 hours you can do it today in good traffic/no peeing.
One particular trip to Toronto defined my car relationship with my father and was possibly the most notable. Trapped in Dad’s LTD, he decided somewhere around Kingston he was going to give me The Talk. Yes, The Talk where as a teen, you have to discuss sexual intimacies with a parent. Yes it was spine-curlingly embarrassing, with long pauses and awkward metaphors and aphorisms that made me press my back hard against the passenger door. I could see it in Dad’s eyes that his back was equally plastered to his door, the window crank making an indelible mark along his spine. But he was determined to get this parental duty done.
Dad started out slow with a statement that would make any teen boy writhe in panic. The harbinger of adult responsibility. The trumpet blow before your cocooned, responsibility-free young adult world crashed down around you.
“You’re at an age, now…”
The depths of which my father went into sex was kept to a respectable level, almost 10ft pole distance, but every so often he would prod one of my prudish nerves like some one-off serial killer extra on Dexter: “You… know about vaginas…?”
“Dad!”
“You know about sex, right? About …fucking…?”
“DAD!!!”
I tried to deflect it by pointing out that we get this subject in school now so this awkward talk can change to something else. But no, he continued.
“You know how babies are made, right?”
“…Dad…? Please.”
And so it went through several topics, until, like some great engine seizing up with a lack of oil, our conversation seized at a long pause, unsure where to go next.
Those who know my father, know this whole incident skirts on the edge of irony. Three years after this scene, my father came out of the closet, finally admitting his own sexuality and becoming comfortable with himself to drive faster.
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My dad, at one time, drove a Ford LTD Crown Victoria. There were occasions where I contemplating opening the car door on Highway 17 and bailing out at highway speed. Talk about a captive audience!
All of this is pretty hilarious. I love it. I grew up on a farm with two extremely mellow(no not medicated) parents. My mother’s motto in raising the 4 of us was, If you cannot tell me about it, then its wrong. So, upon seeing the cats mating at 7, I ran and asked for explanation. I was told we would discuss this later after supper. 20 mins later, I saw the BULL doing his duty with one of the milking cows and ran and asked about that. My older brother was 10 and he got curious too…I always was the first to ask…so at dinner we both got the whole speil. It was great. I even chimed in and asked if Mom and Dad were still doing it…dad ruffed up my hair and said of course. Man oh man did I have a lot to tell the kids at school the following day! The only thing my parents left out was female’s getting their period..so in grade 3 when one of the girls was screaming and crying that she got her period…I ran to the teacher and asked why Paula got punctuation and the rest of us did not…she laughed and deferred that I ask my parents..so again her comes the 7 year old…Mom, Paula got her period today. What is that. My mom tells me now…35 years later that I brought a whole new meaning to TROUBLE. lol
As my sister got pregnant at 16, and I’m 4 years younger than her, I got this talk FROM BOTH OF MY PARENTS AT ONCE when I was 12. Yeah, pretty much wanted to crawl in a hole and die. They even brought out the Cheesy “Joy of Sex” book (with the bad 70’s illustrations) to give me visuals for the talk.
I bear the emotional scars of this 30-minute lecture to this day.
Sharkboy: I’ve married into a fantastic family, haven’t I?
Sean: we see you! Every so often on our PS3. You like peeners.
Don: They’re delicious with some horseradish, I hear.
Craig: You just touched upon my nono place. Or my next blog post.
I lucked out on the whole vagina speech. My dad never talked to me about pretty much anything. My mom gave me a book from a religious publisher about telling your kids about sex. I am sure it is the same book her parents gave her as a teenager.
I learned about sex like every other teenager in my hometown…on the back of the school bus, from the boy down the street and my dad’s porn collection.
You do know about vaginas, right?
OMG! LOL
Thankfully, I never had any such conversation with either of my parents…which, in hindsight could have been a harbinger of doom for my existence, but thankfully I turned out pretty well.
How’re you kids doing? 🙂
Been AWOL from the blogging world for a bit.
Brilliant, trapped in a car, no escape…
I remember the “you know how to make babies right?” question at a family gathering once, but the best I ever got was from one aunt visiting telling me after I announce I was going to take a shower as I was meeting friends for a movie night: “wash it good, wash it really good, girls like it when it’s clean”… I’m glad gin wasn’t wasted at my house, it opened up such great conversation