Antigeist

All I want is your extra time and your...

My pal M and I were talking about one's first kiss, real kiss. Her kiss story was great, epic really, in the way all things pre-adolescent are.

She loved him. Totally. He loved her too, as evidenced by (a) the special Valentine's Day card he gave her and (b) his remarking that she was "the most not-sucky girl he'd ever known" and (c) the lack of protestation when she referred to him as her "boyfriend", even in front of the guys.

They kissed behind a ferris wheel, the center attraction of a traveling carnival that had been plunked down in a parking lot shared by a Buster Brown's, a diner called Hungry's, and the First Episcopal Church of our Lord. The Church protested. Not the kiss, the carnival. They said rides and gambling and tattooed carnies do not contribute to a Christian atmosphere; that a carnival with all its garbage and flashing lights would "ruin the integrity of the plaza and surrounding environs", like that's possible. Come to think of it they probably wouldn't have approved of the kiss either. Anyway, M and, what was his name? Brian? had loved each other since February so by July (when the carnival came to town) it was like they were married already, for fifth graders.

The kiss was preceded by much talk of the kiss. When they would kiss. How they would kiss. Who would tilt their head in which direction. Whether or not tongues would come into play. How tongues come into play. When they agreed to go to the carnival together it was a foregone conclusion the kiss was going to happen, in their minds the carnival came to town for no other reason than to provide a good backdrop, well, and to piss off the Episcopalians. Yet he was nervous. Cute. He kept begging her to ride the ferris wheel one more time. And then the tilt-a-whirl, and then the ferris wheel again. She thought he was going to put the moves on her during their last ferris wheel ride, so she applied a little more Bonnie Bell cotton candy flavored (fitting) lip gloss --the kind on a rope, the kind we learned to wipe OFF in expectation of a kiss as well-seasoned teenagers, until they invented the Revlon Colorstay stuff that rocks through a kiss like a champ-- but he didn't kiss her then, he waited for the ride to stop. He led her behind the ferris wheel and held her hands in his. "I guess we should make-out, huh?" he said. "Yeah" she said. And they did. Right there in front of Buster Brown and God and everyone.

See? Epic.

Posted by Antigeist at August 26, 2003 03:42 PM