I was eleven when my world all came crashing in.
You know, the world before the real world.
I was at the house on top of the hill, hanging with my girlfriend and her girlfriend. They were both a year older than me.
It had only been a couple of rotations of the earth, before that, that she had lived next door to me, and we would sit under her stair well along with the spiders and lick the salt pellets that were in a bag about our size.
My God.
I think that might be why I now have an aversion to salt rimmed margueritas. Please do not drizzle a glaze over your coffee cake that is made of salt either. And do not tell Millie Noe, who has already given into peer pressure and has played the old, let's be pregnant nuns living in a convent, about the birds and the bees.
I never wanted to be a nun and I never wanted to have a baby.
But what was I supposed to do?
I couldn't climb trees and play basketball with Danny anymore. He dumped me, his best friend, for a girly, kind of a girl.
So, all I had left, was to hang out with these girls.
"We saw a movie about it in school," says Lisa.
"Shh," said Sue. "We aren't supposed to tell them about it."
"Shut up!" I said. "You guys are lying."
"No. Not lying," said Lisa.
"So, I am supposed to believe that once a month, for a whole week, women bleed from their pee hole?"
"Yes."
"What would be the purpose?"
"It is so we can get pregnant."
"No," says Sue. "It means if you get your period you are not pregnant."
"I don't want anything to do with it. I don't even like babies."
They rolled their eyes.
"Then why do you babysit?"
"For the money," I said in an outrage.
"Millie, calm down. It's not that bad. It means when you get your period, that you have become a woman."
I stared at my friend.
"It is a gift from God," she says.
"A gift from God? You call that a gift? It's bad enough we have to have these stupid boobs."
They stared at me.
"What happens to boys then?" I said.
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
And then, as if I wasn't already going to explode they proceeded to tell me about intercourse.
I was nauseous.
It was worse than learning that Santa was no more than a lie.
"Shoot me," I said.
"Oh Millie, you are overreacting. It's just life."
How was I supposed to look at my Mom and Dad again, knowing what they had been up to?
"Your parents must really like doing it," said Lisa.
"How do you know?"
"Well, they've got six kids."
Sue and Lisa each had but one sibling.
I do not mean to be disrespectful to God, if he does exist and if he did indeed create this universe or any other universe. But, I have to say that if I were in charge, I would have done a few things a little bit differently. I don't see anything wrong with the whole stork story. I will testify that since that time, I have figured out that intercourse is not ugly, just an ugly word. You know, it's like the exact opposite of the words period or friend, which sound relatively nice, but they both can mean, menstruation, which is not that pleasant of a word. And, I still do not understand why sex has to have anything to do with making babies. I don't think that one should have anything to do with the other. Why not just have the storks deliver the babies to those who would like to have babies and have passed the qualifying test? It would give storks something to do. They would be super popular. It would also eliminate the whole period situation, period. I am just being a spokeswoman for others, as I am well beyond those trying days.
It was only a matter of weeks after that horrifying conversation, that the projector was rolled into my classroom.
I was aghast. I was appalled. And I was pissed.
Right there on the screen was a little egg sitting in a tube with a bunch of little fish rushing toward it.
Gazillions of them.
And then to learn that the messy, menstruation part of the whole deal was how our bodies flush out that tube.
Dumb.
Sounds like a bad design.
How about just spraying a hose up there?
But, the very worst part of the film that had my mouth gaping, was the purse.
You see, that is where you store your supplies.
And you will want to keep that purse with you at all times, because you can never be sure when that new 'friend' of yours is going to pay you a little visit.
YOUR PURSE????
You mean to tell me, that I, me, Millie Noe, was going to have to carry around a purse?
Up to that point I thought purses were just for cigarettes and lipstick.
Since that day, I have been prepared for any disaster that may come my way.