Have you ever thought about how gross kissing is? And how we, as humans, thought to do it? Like who thought pressing lips against someone else's would feel good? The textbook we use in our composition classes at the college has an article on how kissing may have evolved, and it could go back to when mothers chewed their children's food and deposited it in their mouths (like mama birds). And in times of famine, the feeding motion (kissing) would give the hungry babies and toddlers comfort.
Anyhoo...
I was pretty boy crazy as a very tiny girl. I was always "marrying" one of the neighborhood kids (Rocky and Scotty mostly, depending on where I was living at the time), and I had a crush on a boy named Andrew in kindergarten, and I used to kiss ALL of his stuff that was stored in our bathroom. (We had a bathroom in our room that doubled as a closet.) Yes, I KNOW. CREEPER. (Me, not Andrew.)
Here I am in all of my creeper kindergarten glory. My mama was pretty upset I didn't take my sweater off for my class photo.
Fast forward a few years, and I am best friends with Jess, and we are both fighting over a boy named Tim, who was in Jessica's grade but liked me more. (I was two years older.) When you are a teacher, you make a FOOL of yourself every day, and one of the ways I do this is by telling and showing my students my first kiss. (Not actually showing them--get yer minds outta the gutter, folks. I don't kiss my students.)
in my fifth grade glory/model phase
I will pull directly from a PowerPoint I used last spring.
In
fourth grade, I had my first kiss with Tim ______ during a sleepover with his
little sister. We were playing
Truth-or-Dare, and my best friend Jessica dared him to kiss me. I didn’t want to kiss him, but Tim kissed me
anyway with Jessica’s help. It wasn’t a
real kiss because I was able to turn my head away. But Jessica still got mad at me for it.
His
name was Tim ______. When I was in
fourth grade, all
of the girls (and boys) in my
neighborhood were younger than me, including Tim’s little sister Amber. So when she asked me to spend the night in
her dad’s brown-gray tent in their overgrown backyard, I packed my favorite
pillow and a Barbie toothbrush. She also
invited my best friend Jessica, who swore she was going to marry Tim as she
doodled his name in a heart on her notebook.
(They were in the same grade.)
Tim suggested we play Truth-or-Dare, a game we took very seriously in
elementary school, so Jess dared him to kiss me. I, of course, being much older and wiser,
refused to kiss this baby and pushed him away and squealed. But Jess held me down while Tim went in for
the kill. His two puckered lips came at
my face like an alien spaceship zooming through the sky. I thanked my stars when I was able to turn my
head at the last moment but not fast enough.
Tim’s kiss was . . .
slimy.
And salty. Wet in a woozy kind of
way. We were two kids who had rode our
bicycles in the sun all day and were now coated in a fine layer of sticky
sweat. Ugh. Despite this failed first kiss, Jess was
jealous and mad—at me.
The first example tells the story. The second one shows the story. And it almost makes my students want to throw up. So...winning?! Yes. Yes, I am.
My first real kiss happened when I was sixteen and dating this guy that I didn't really like--but everyone else thought he was hot--and I used to skip class and go hang out with him and his best friend, who my best friend was dating. And he kissed me one afternoon in the back of Steph's car, but I kept my mouth shut tight. And then we broke up. After he kissed another chick. No big deal. I didn't really like him. But I'm mad at myself to.this.DAY for letting my grades drop over those few months.
my blonde-highlights-show-I'm-a-rebel-and-discovering-myself phase
(Also, the Polaroid I-Zone Instant Camera Phase)
The next guy I kissed kinda ruined kissing for me because he was really good at it, and I tend to count that first kiss with him as my first real-real kiss. I think I was seventeen. It wasn't until I kissed Zach that anyone came close to David or close to surpassing him. Of course, this guy had lots of practice. (Um, he changed girlfriends as often as he changed his underwear, I think.) And it's not like I kissed a lot of guys. (Um, maybe five? And most of them only once.) Then I dated another guy named David (David #2), and the first time I kissed him, his teeth knocked against mine so HARD that I thought I might have chipped a tooth. So I never thought I would find someone who could kiss as well as David #1.
But then I met my husband. After I dated a really country boy, who dipped (for those not in the know--chewing tobacco), so when I kissed him, I tasted tobacco and sweet tea. Ewww. Let's try again. Ewwwwwwwwww. See? Kissing is gross.
(In his defense, he was pretty sweet. And we had the same birthday. Just a good ole' country boy. Just not my type?)
during my country boy phase
(Tasha ended up marrying her country boy, who was friends with mine.)
Oh, and I kissed two three (um, four?) more guys in there somewhere, one that was kind of rocker and angsty and I was crazy about; the second I don't really remember except for the fact that we kissed in the rain because I wanted to get a kiss in the rain, and then another guy who had had lots of practice kissing, too. I really know how to pick 'em.
my wild kissing days with my pal Katie on her birthday
And then I met my husby. And on our first date, we were walking around one of the college campuses in Conway, and we sat down on a bench, he put his arm around me, and then he said, "Kiss me." And so I did. And it was gooooooood. :)))
And so we decided to kiss forever!
But I'm not letting you see that because I think kissing photos are awkward. Just like this post. ;)
WHAT ABOUT YOUR FIRST KISS(ES)?
A SUMMER OF THROWBACK THURSDAYS
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