so the other night i was havin some brews with some peeps at liar's club. cheap drinks, good friends, rad tunes. with a bit of a pbr induced buzz creeping on, i found myself belting out the words to several 90's rhymes. i guess i didn't realize until recently that i had it hard for salt n' peppa. mariah carey. boyz 2 men. montell jordan. whatever, just pure, unapologetic girl i be lovin you 90's pop. what concerns me, though, is that as my mom blindly purchased me whatever cassette tape i desired, without either one of us paying any attention to what i was so blatantly rockin out to in my bedroom.
sure, albums like ace of base's 'the sign,' or sugar ray's 'floored,' were innocent enough. the bodyguard soundtrack, fine. but the biggest hits that i really dove into may have had some more mature content in their lyrics than i realized. i remember 4th grade, when we had "bring your fave music into class" day in our music class, what tape did i bring? oh bobby brown, but of course. i'll never forget the look of horror on mrs. bowman's face when she asked which track i was requesting, "humpin around." "no jodi, we can't play that here." i didn't get it, what was wrong? wasn't that the hip dance jam of 1992? what was her deal? now i listen back, and not only was that song an earbleeding travesty, but it promotes the importance of not "humpin around," damn - it shoulda been the other way around, sexual liberty and such. fuck monotany.
i remember being 11, when the cool thing in 6th grade was to rollerblade in circles on the new outdoor basketball court outside my elementary school at recess. all the cool kids had blades, they were the fad. i was probably the only nerd who's mom made her bring knee pads to school, but i just threw that shit aside. i wasn't no square. full mullet, big goggles, hotpink stretch pants and goose or teddybear t-shirt, i rocked the coolest fashions and had my cassette tape walkman strapped to my waist. sometimes one of the more popular kids would bring their convertable cd player outside, where we would all skate in unison to the likes of salt-n-peppa's "very unnecessary." i love love love that i have every word memorized from that album, down to the aids psa at the end of the cd. that and tlc's "crazy sexy cool," i knew everything there was to know about sexin, from red light specials to what to find in a real man, this is how they did it -- and pondered the real importancies in life, like, i wanna know - how does it hang?
bib overalls were all the rage, as i recollect.
i remember in 6th grade there was this girl with a wicked sweet perm. her name was ariel. she had the hotts big time for aaron harris. i don't know why i know this 15 or so odd years later, but whatever. one day ariel brought in a bunch of condoms to school. it amazed the entire 6th grade class. she had multi-colored condoms, flavored, themed, everything. i think this was her way of making herself available for aaron harris. i'm not sure. it really creeped me out. but regardless, my friend ryan and i snatched a handful of them and proceeded to have one helluva balloon volleyball party in my backyard after school. we were cool like that. i vaguely remember sampling a banana condom and thinking to myself, well that wasn't really all that tasty.
around 7th grade one of my former girlfriends had started seeing boys. i remember it was such a controversey, big hush hush secret that my friends wanted to keep private from me particularly, but the girl had started "getting fingered." the one girl who spilled the beans to me swore me to privacy, but at the same time, agreed to call said fingered girl on a third line and let me listen to their conversation as she milked it out of fingered girl to give details. rumor had it, she then had sex with her boyfriend and her other friend/boyfriend on the same bed. in 8th grade. gross, right? at this point, i decided pretending to skateboard was cooler than fingerbanging and rollerskating and somewhat divorced those friends. they were pretty big bitches to me on the cheerleading squad too - i remember overhearing finger girl hiss "just wait til i drop her from the top of the pyramid," ouch.
even though i had every sexual verse in top 40 history memorized at this time in my life, the idea of seeing, yet alone touching, a penis terrified me. that was just not for me. i couldn't even get a boy to hold my hand, let alone put a tongue in my mouth. but still, i would croon along to "ill make love to you" and "i wanna sex you up" like it was nothing. my mom probably thought i was super cool. no wonder she blindly made a "physcial" secret dr appointment for me at age 15, without the slightest warning of her sabotage planned first pap smear. "why do i need to undress????" "oh, your mom didn't tell you? this is a gyno visit, jodi. you're going on the pill today." "what pill???" "birth control." "what's that??"
must have been all that salt n peppa. hmmmm.
oh well, it all came full circle. i eventually learned the lessons of love and am no longer terrified to let a boy insert his tongue in my mouth. and really, i'm the winner here. i can now go out to hipster bars and drunkenly belt out all the words to "none of your business" without a skip in the beat. i'm a real hit, g's.
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