Member-only story
Funny not funny
That Time My Teen Asked to Talk to Me About Something
Scariest day of my life
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“Hey Mom, remember when you said I could ask you anything?”
This is it, I think. This is the moment my freshly-minted teenager asks me about girls, or sex, or puberty, or my opinion about his friend Ainsley who comes over after school and eats all our food even though her parents are rich and they never reciprocate. Or that idiot Braden who sounds about as intelligent saying skibidi toilet as my boss when she says kudo like the ‘s’ is silent.
THE ‘S’ IS NOT SILENT.
I swallow hard, sit up tall, and focus on playing it cool, way cool.
“Of course, Sweetie, anything!”
Can he smell my desperation? I oh-so-subtly tap my nose to my pit and smell my own desperation. I turned to natural deodorant when I was afraid my antiperspirant was giving me Alzheimer’s but now I smell like some wrong combination of fish and sauerkraut and I still can’t remember a goddamn thing.
Where was I?
He takes a deep breath. Exhales slowly. It reminds me of those early contractions when he was still a ball in my stomach. It was unseasonably warm and I…
