13 Firsts

Note: all names, except Larry's, have been changed to protect the innocent and not so innocent.

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1. First day of school.
My family moved from Tuscon, Arizona to Tremonton, Utah when I was five years old. The day before I was supposed to start school, my mom walked with me from the house to the school, showing me the way. My first day, I walked part way then walked home, upset and crying, because I couldn’t remember how to get there. She walked with me to school. Looking back, it was a huge distance of… three blocks. I think it was the first and only time I was stressed about getting to school.

2. First kiss.
The first girl I kissed was Samantha. We were in the sixth grade. Years later when I attended her wedding reception, he mother (who looked like a bad witch from Disney) would lean into and wag her finger at me, point at the groom and say “that should have been you.” No, I couldn’t be a bastard to the mother of the bride, so I just smiled and nodded and patted her on the back.

The first guy I kissed was Samantha’s brother, Carl.

3. First date.
My first girl-date was with Elissa. I was 15, she was 16 but couldn’t drive yet. My mom dropped me off at her place and we walked to a local pizza parlor. The relationship was mostly platonic, though we did get into heavy petting and my hands under her blouse and her hands down my pants while I was at her house. She was a convenient long-distance girlfriend through most of high school, long after she moved away and I didn’t talk to her again.

My first boy-date was with Terrance. We went to dinner, and I remember sitting across from him at Olive Garden and thinking he had the most annoying laugh I’d ever heard – a mix between a muppet on steroids and a snorting pig. We dated for six months (and I kept his mouth busy), until I figured out that I didn’t have to date the first gay guy I had met.

4. First car.
The first car I drove was a Ford Mustang. My friend Tony taught me how to drive a stick-shift in an LDS parking lot in Murray, Utah. If there’s one good thing about the Mormon church, it’s their super-sized (and nearly always empty) parking lots.

5. First time—
Thomas and I had gone camping. Physically, we were almost twins (to the inch), except he was dark haired. The first night, we’d gone skinny dipping (first requirement, getting naked) then spent hours talking about all the sex we’d never had (stoking the fire), then a truth-or-dare series of questions for each other, culminating in two horny teenagers showing their respective arousal to the other (conflagration of lust). Then we chickened out.

The next night we repeated everything and braved it through more than showing. It was an amazing summer.

6. First break up.
My first girlfriend breakup was with Elissa, via the telephone (15 or 16). My first breakup was with Terrance, five weeks and six days later than I should have.

7. First ‘real’ job.
In my senior year in high school, I was a data entry clerk for a pipe and fitting distributor.

8. First time to lose a job.
I’ve not lost a job before, but I have gained my sanity by finding new opportunities.

9. First time in love.
Visually speaking, the Bay City Rollers – I would have been about seven or eight years old.

Emotionally? For what it was at the time: Thomas.

10. First drink.
My friend Reggie and I mixed orange juice and gin in large glasses – half and half ratios. We were wretchedly sick. Funny how I can drink tequila until I’m green (and throwing up), but to this day I cannot stand the taste of gin.

11. First Sign of a Backbone.
I was gonna say I was born ass-first…

I was kicked out of primary for laughing during the opening prayer, I went home and told my mom I’d never go back. I never did.

12. First Ambition.
I wanted to write. I’ve wrestled that beast for thirty-plus years.

13. First Realization of Mortality.
When I was 13-14, I came home from school. My mom wanted me to check on Tasha, our German Shepherd, who hadn’t been feeling well. I found her dead in her dog house, already stiff. My dad had to take the dog house apart to get her out. We dug a hole on the side of the house and buried her. I tried writing about her in my diary but all I could do was sit and cry and ask God “why?”

Around the same time, a close family friend was electrocuted. He had climbed a tree and hit a high voltage wire. My brother and I weren’t allowed to go to the funeral. I never got to say goodbye to you, Larry.