Awkward Moments: Wee Willy Winkie

The first time I ever saw a mini wiener I got an unsuspected two-fer on a family trip. During the first sighting the kid was older and didn’t even speak English. The second incident was much more intimate, and the kid was my age. This happened within a few days' time. Before you start thinking I was a little peeping pervert, hear me out. That didn’t come until about ten years later, I swear.

I was five on this occasion when my mom, dad, little sister and I hopped into the van and traveled from Minnesota to Arizona where we had lived up until the previous year. My parents had a lot of friends there and my grandparents were still together and living in Tucson. The journey itself was a lot of fun. This was back when seatbelts weren’t a requirement. So when we weren’t staring out the back windows watching other cars and making funny faces at old ladies, my sister and I were sleeping comfortably or sitting on our parents laps up front learning how to drive. Well, not really driving, but we experienced the thrill of learning how to steer a moving vehicle going 55 mph down the highway. Dad was a good teacher; and I admit it was a real power trip, knowing if I let go of the wheel we’d all surely die.

My dad loved the two-seater van and spent a lot of time pimping it out in the mid to late seventies. He insulated it, installed woofers all over the place, built and installed a bench, not to mention built a bed in the very back. We spent a lot of time in it as it was our ride and doubled as a camper. But then the new laws went into effect and the van went into permanent park mode. There wasn’t any sense maintaining it anymore. Hello station wagon! It just wasn’t the same. Safety really put a damper on things.

Many rest stops and homemade sandwiches later, we got to Tucson and went straight to Grandma & Grandpa’s. Nothing odd happened there. Well, that’s not entirely true. Someone decided since we were so close to Mexico, why not hop the border (legally) and visit my great-grandparents who didn’t speak one word of English. Cool! Little did I know just how much “cooler” it would get. So the next morning my grandma hopped into the van with us, which was kind of important since she was the only one in our little group who was bilingual. I wonder what she was saying when she’d mutter things under her breath in Spanish and look at my mother. I’ll never know for sure but I can just imagine.

We got to the shack for the very first time in our lives and couldn’t believe our eyes. It had a tin roof, wood stove, no electricity whatsoever… and an outhouse? Up until then I’d thought everyone had indoor plumbing. What insanity! Have you ever had to urinate or defecate into a hole located in what resembles a closet but is much smaller? The toilet seat is just there for show. This is nothing like a toilet! It is less frightening and probably more sanitary to use a bush, but there was no wilderness to be found; just rows of shacks surrounded by barbed wire. To protect what? I don’t know. Maybe the Virgin Mary statues and hoards of candles.

I assumed they’d be a cranky old pair living in such poor conditions, but since this was all they really knew they were surprisingly content. But I was kind of frustrated in this foreign land; it was a bitch not being able to understand my own kin. What was even weirder was trying to mingle with the kids in the barrio. They ignored us whenever we said, "Hi."
Surely they could understand that much? Nope. They would just stare and talk amongst themselves as they passed by. So my sis and I played with our dolls out in the heat under a shady tree and hoped we’d be leaving soon. And preferably before we’d have to pee again.

After what seemed like an all-day-long-eternity but was probably an hour (I did not enjoy playing with AKA babysitting a two-yr-old) two boys who looked about eight and ten walked by and made a beeline right for our van. They disappeared around to the other side of the unlocked van, where the sliding door was located. Little five-year-old me thought they might be up to some trouble. All I could think was I had to defend our van and figured yelling at them in English would scare them away. So I boldly ran over and just as I turned the corner of the van to tell them off, I stopped dead in my tracks about two feet from where they stood. One of the boys was zipping up and the other still had his dinky out. They both turned to find me standing there with very big eyes. They promptly ran away, leaving two fresh puddles behind them. So my plan worked after all; and I didn’t have to make a sound.

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Back in Tucson either the very next day or shortly thereafter, we went to visit a couple who were my parents’ friends. They had a boy my age and a girl my sister’s age. The boy immediately began to creep me out. He just stood there and smiled at me. Our parents suggested we go play together. Considering it was either that, listen to a boring adult convo or play with the younger girls, I went off with the little urchin.

We went to his bedroom and I had a look around at his playthings. Toy trucks? No. Action figures? Maybe. TV set? Now we’re talking. So I turned on the TV, but then he told me he had something he wanted to show me. I wasn’t prepared for a show and tell session so I was a little perturbed. All of my good stuff was back at home. But I followed him into the closet anyway, thinking he had some cool new toy flashlight that projected an image of Spider Man’s web, or maybe even the Bat Signal. Back home my only male friend and I would role play Super Heroes, but somehow I always ended up being Wonder Woman. There really weren’t any other options for me.

I get into the closet and he tells me to close my eyes for a surprise. So I covered my eyes with my hands and waited for a few seconds. “Open them now,” he said excitedly.

He was standing right next to me and had yanked out his little sidekick. He held it in his small hands and looked at it, then up at me. “Do you want to touch it?”

I never saw him again after that…

Why I prefer mountains to beaches

I’ve never been to a real beach, that is, an ocean. So I obviously haven’t had the true beach experience. However, I grew up in a state with many lakes, and back home a “beach” is what we call a sandy lake shore. So now I‘ll compare mountains to beaches based on my vast wealth of (cough) knowledge.

Mountains: If you’ve never taken a drive through the mountains, put it on your to-do list. They are majestic, beautiful, and clean. What’s even better is visiting a mountain lake, spring, river, or falls. Now let me be clear - I’m just talking about a day trip here. If you’ve never been camping before, this is not the best place to pop that cherry. Bears love mountains even more than humans, and can smell food from miles away. You don’t want to have a cook-out unless you’ve brought your guns. The actual odds of seeing a bear are very slim, but you’ll probably see deer, eagles, mountain goats and other wildlife. So as long as you aren’t camping or wandering off the trail, the worst thing you’ll ever see are log cabins as this might make you think of the Unabomber (definitely will if you‘re in Montana) but I have yet to run into any creepy people. Hermits like to hide and will only hurt you if you climb the barbed wire. And when you do see people they are usually sight-seeing and share the same look of dumbfounded awe on their faces. Sure, you could look up relevant pictures on the internet or watch the Travel Channel, but it doesn‘t come close to being there. Maybe if I compare mountains to sex it will help drive the point home. You wouldn’t choose porn over flesh, would you? Well, maybe that isn’t the best question to be asking on the internet.

Beaches: There really isn’t any scenery unless you can ignore the beachgoers, rolls of naked flesh, bright orange towels, bright orange swimsuits, umbrellas, sandals, and litter. Don’t tell me you can enjoy the sound of the waves and seagulls when every few minutes some one is yelling (as if the kids can hear Mom while they’re up to their necks in water). And there is always that one screaming child who gives you an instant headache, and the couple who can't keep their domestic dispute in the bar where it belongs. You could go to a more secluded beach but you’ll still get sand in your swimsuit. Uh oh, I’m having a flashback to my childhood. Maybe this is just a girl problem, but when I was a kid I was a sand magnet. And it wasn’t just me. I had sisters, and friends. No matter how hard we tried to avoid it, we always ended up just like toy dump trucks. We had to ride home with sandpaper on our crotches. When we’d change out of our suits we’d have to pour them out over a waste basket. Also, at the beach there is no such thing as average. There are only two kinds of people - the kind that shouldn’t be in a swimsuit, and the kind that make you want to see what’s under it. The latter of the two, the sexy people with the rock-hard abs, make everyone else feel insecure and insignificant. And that is usually 90% on any given day. And you always see a few of the unattractive beachgoers giving the smoking hot ones those looks that could kill, like, How dare they look so good? You can just feel the animosity. If it weren’t so hot, because heat tends to make it difficult for people to move, they’d probably just beat the ever living crap out of them for looking so damn good. If that went down, I’d have to reevaluate my whole outlook on beaches. But for now, this is where I stand. Mountains are better.