Why I really wish we had two ironing boards growing up

Posted on by Pretty Polar

Growing up, it was always the 3 of us. Mom, my sister April and myself. Sometimes my mom had boyfriends, some for weeks, occasionally some made it a few months and very rarely, but at least on a few occasions, over a year. One winning example of a man she deemed worthy of more than a year, with some break ups and repeat performances thru out my life was Dex.

Dex was a biker, with greasy black hair and an unkempt black beard to match. He could always be found with a beer in his big hairy mitt, adorned in a tacky leather vest covered in patches. Ill fitting jeans were no stranger to this man and his protruding belly. My mother adored Dex, the sun rose and set in his black and beady little eyes for her. Despite the obvious hero-worship happening, mom never trusted Dex. She would often times tell us horror stories from his past when he wasn’t around, cautioning us to be aware of how we were dressed or which pajamas were appropriate to wear if he was going to be there that night. She’d warn us of his unabashed foot fetish or the child molestation he was wanted for in another state , even once telling us he tried to kill her with the same knife he always kept on his person.

At this point, you’re judging her thinking why would this women allow this man around her babies? Well, fear not, as our mother, the saint, had a very special way of “protecting us” from Dex. We were accustomed to her keeping anything personal or financial locked in the trunk of her car with all of her boyfriends for fear that they might steal what very little money she did have, but there was another way she shielded us when Dex was a part of our lives. An ironing board and a towel. Yes. You read that correctly.

You’re asking yourself, did she train these young girls to use the ironing board and towel as say a young ninja might? Were we well versed in an underground ironing board and towel fighting technique you are just hearing about now? Sadly no, to both. The way in which our mother “protected us” was this. April was given an ironing board and each night before bed she would take it into her room, close the door and prop the board against it. The idea here is that anyone who opens the door will knock the board over and make quite a racket. Not bad, right? Well let me finish. We, like most families, only had one ironing board, so when security systems were being doled out, I, the youngest, was given a towel. I can see how this would be a difficult concept for outsiders to grasp so let me break it down for you. The towel wasn’t going to alert anyone of anything, I wasn’t t supposed to fashion it into a weapon of mass strangulation or hide underneath it in the laundry basket. The only solace my mother offered me was a towel, with which I was instructed to stuff it underneath my door after closing each night, so that I would know in the morning if “someone” had come into my room while I was sleeping. Yes. AFTER the fact.

Being around 12 or 13 years old and knowing the only thing standing between you and rape is a towel teaches you two things in my experience.

The first thing is that you will never be more invested in a project than I was when I was stuffing that towel under my door each night. Full concentration and brute force, as if working on my towel folding skills long enough would somehow offer any kind of real protection in the dead of night.

Two, is that again, when the only thing protecting you from an old gnarly drunk invading your space in every way imaginable,  is a fucking towel, you can forget about sleep. Just, just don’t. It’s not gonna happen. Is 12 too young to develop a caffeine pill habit? No, no it is not when you spend most nights with your eyes glued to a towel. You simply have no idea. We couldn’t all be Princess April, wafting away to dream land in our fortress of clangy ironing board protected slumber.

In closing, this is why when all my friends were pleading with their parents for a dope azz new outfit, a fun-filled day at the roller rink or maybe even their very own puppy, all I REALLY wanted was another ironing board in the God Damned house, so I could get some sleep too.

Dedicated to my mom.

Thanks.

15 years old and ready to parrrrrrr-tay

Posted on by Pretty Polar

I decided to start with a beginners story, one that has been told and retold thru out the ages. There are many “The first time I got white girl wasted” tales, but this one is mine, and a personal fave with some of my friends. Disclaimer, I cannot verify the order in which the following events took place as I was drunk, but that’s the whole idea, so don’t be a dick about it.

I was only 15 years old, a pretty, thin’ish, goth’ish girl, meandering around town with my suburban degenerate friends. I had already told my mother that I would be spending the night with a girlfriend of mine, so I was free to roam around and do hoodrat things with my hoodrat friends for as long as I pleased. Lambo (super stealthy name given for the purpose of anonymity) and I had hooked up with her boyfriend for the night, we’ll call him Burnsie. We walked around white suburbia for a few hours before deciding to take this wild party of 3 to Burnsies house as their were no adults there.

When we arrived at Burnsies place, without hesitation Lambo and I were escorted to his parent’s basement, and when I say basement, I mean their underground bar. Unlocked and fully stocked, we had a colorful lineup of liquors at our disposal. Now, when I look back on this day as an adult, and try to make sense of this decision, I tell myself that the following choice was made based on what liquor would be missed the least by his parents and that he no way chose the nastiest, smelliest, grossest booze imaginable just to watch the world burn. So, Burnsie  the makeshift barkeeper filled our glasses. The bottle he chose was green, and what came out of the bottle was also green, and thick, maybe a bit warm, and mixed with nothing at all. I was told it was vermouth, but I cannot confirm or deny the validity of this statement.

Excited to get this party started, Lambo and I guzzled down our syrupy mouthwash and readied for more. After a glass or two, we all went upstairs where I could use the kitchen line to call my boyfriend (of 1-2 days) and tell him how much I loved him, repeatedly. Yes. Even in the days of landlines and training bras, drunk dialing, still very much a thing.

My buds weren’t paying absolute attention to me while I poured out my soul via phone so I thought I’d score more love and attention if I made a game of chugging from the green bottle every time they turned their backs to me.  (Which suuuuuuuper worked, but mostly because of something called “alcohol poisoning” , some term being thrown around allot.)  But whatever, I was the star of the show, and I had declared my love to everyone by now, so it was a good party. Woot woot. At some point the phone was taken from me, again, no cellphones, and the only phone line was needed so that these 15 year olds could call some other 15 year olds for some top-notch medical advice, as Lambo and Burnsie were pretty sure I was going to die in his kitchen, and they would have been sooooo grounded if that happened.

I have a vague recollection of some bread being mushed in my mouth before being half and carried half dragged into a bathroom, where I was left unattended. With no human comfort in site, I started desperately pulling at the floor tile and successfully freeing it from its gluey prison. I really liked that ripping sound it made as I rolled around pulling more and more up. I guess “Romeo and Juliet” could tell by the ripping sounds that their plan to leave me alone to choke to death on my vomit had crashed and burned because suddenly, Burnsie burst in, grabbed my ankle and hauled me out of there faster than you can say “I think the dog may have pulled on the bathroom tile mom”.

Having been dragged thru two location changes now, and brimming with vermouth, bread and orange juice, my “not so steely” stomach unloaded its contents.

My throat burned with a charge of minty bread stew as I retched all over, what I later learned to be, a brand new white shag carpet. Despite my fiery throat, I remember a feeling of calm and warmth washing over me directly after. I sat up, with my glassy eyes and pukey mouth, surveying as my poor friends looked on in horror. Everything was so clean (outside of the obvious), it was tidy, organized, very magazine cover, except for a stray dog hair popping up from what I imagined to be Burnsies fathers chair. I crawled across the floor and ate the dog hair, much better.

I guess after drinking all the syrup, and destroying a portion of the houses flooring, I had over stayed my welcome. Burnsie took Lambo and I outside to wait for her father to pick us up. It was cool outside, breezy, I could hear crickets chirping and the nervous chatter of my friends as they tried to get me to take part in a rehearsal of sorts. The plan was for me to come across as sick, not incredibly drunk, when Lambos dad got there. I didn’t care about all that tho, I was having a super happy fun time and they just didn’t seem like they wanted in anymore.

The cool air on my face was nice, but what I really wanted now was to feel the wind on my underdeveloped 15-year-old chest, so off came my top,  which is impressive if you think about it, how much faster my drunken reflexes were than Lambos. She lunged to cover me before her boyfriend got a good look but it was that same moment a fire truck turned the corner and pulled up in front of us. Lambo and Burnsie hadn’t rehearsed for this scenario so when mister fireman asked if we were ok, eyeballing me in all my topless glory, they just stood their, slack-jawed, and someone stammered something about “finding me at a party” while I danced around in front of the fire truck singing about how hot I was. I’m sure I meant hot as in temperature, let the record show, even inebriated, a narcissistic I was not. The fire truck watched on as Lambo fought to redress my top half and pull me from the street before taking off to put out fires or whatever, and I apologize to anyone who was waiting to be rescued that night as their lateness was deft on me. So, my bad.

20 minutes or so later Lambos father pulled up, Burnsie took off into the night, as Lambo got in the front, and I silently fell into the back seat and slumped down focusing on making everything not spin anymore. Father Lambo gave me a discerning look thru the rear view mirror, and asked if I was alright. I tried so hard to recall what my lines were, and remembered something about being sick? “I’m sick” I slurred, “and I need to go home”. Yes! Nailed it. I was all over this, and 100% that I was selling it to him,  I repeated ” I’m sick, And I need to go home”. Yup. Totally believable. He said something, maybe to his daughter, but maybe to me, just to be safe, I better remind him how sick I am and that I need to go home, I thought, and so I did……over and over, for the entire 15 minute car ride. Thank God we rehearsed this.

When I was dropped home, I was relieved that no one felt the need to walk me to my door. I wasn’t sure where or if I had a key, and these clowns were really killing my mood. I half fell from the car and staggered towards home, crashing into the gate, and fumbling around for a latch. I found my way thru the gate and up three steps, thru the door and into our back enclosed porch.  Relieved to be this close to home, but at the same time, I hadn’t planned on what I was going to do at this point. I wasn’t sure if I had the key, or where on my body it would be, our apartment was on the second floor and there was a winding stairwell between me and the apt. This part of the story is a total blank for me unfortunately as I completely blacked out. I woke up in the morning on the porch, I had taken off my top and thrown up into it, and then used it as a pillow. Mmmmm, soft. I was a bit clearer when I woke up so I managed to find my key and after a few stumbley attempts I got upstairs. As “luck” would have it, my bedroom was on the complete opposite end of the apartment from the entrance, so when I came in the door and my mothers gross old Pervy boyfriend approached the kitchen, I ducked into the bathroom and turned the shower on. Of course the whole reason he was up was that apparently, he had to pee, so I made like I was finishing up and hurriedly wet my pukey hair in the shower. No towels? No problem! I wrapped my hair in my petrified puke shirt, covered my bits and pieces with a bath mat and scrambled past Pervy pee man to the sweet sweet relief that was my bed, where I slept for the next 100 years. And yes, I got away with it. And no, Lambo and Burnsie did not get away with it.

This story is dedicated to my friends Lambo and Burnsie, as they were both caught drinking and killed by their parents.

RIP