TMI Thursday: What the Rock is cookin’

First thing, before the entertainment portion of today's post, driving into work this morning the car in front of me had a McCain-Palin sticker on its bumper.

Or, I should say, the remains of a McCain-Palin sticker. The driver of the car had, I’m guessing since the election, taken the time to scrape off the “McCain” part of the sticker leaving just the “Palin” part.

Hope springs eternal? I don’t know about you, but I’m of the opinion the less we see of the former mayor of Wasilla the better off the country will be going forward.

Anyway, on to the TMI Thursday portion of today’s entertainment.

I ask you to think back, back to when we were young, carefree and responsible for nothing more than making it to class on time and hitting three keggers before curfew.

In a word, back to college.

Remember those glorious days way, way back in our youth when, despite the wonderful freedom offered by a life on your own, every once in a while it was nice to return to hearth and home. If only for a single night.

To set the scene a little more accurately, it is the spring of 1996 in North Carolina and my girlfriend at the time needed to go home for some reason or another and I was going along for the ride. Actually, I was doing the driving up to Elkin, N.C., but that’s neither here nor there.

My girlfriend, Meg, was a freshman and lived in the next suite down on the ninth floor of Morrison. By this time we’d been dating for most of the past school year. (Sentimental point: Like all of my exs whom I’ve loved, she will always hold a very special place in my heart.) I was a sophomore but, more germane to this tale, was a bit older due to my years before the mast in the service of our nation.

This trip was the first time I would be spending the night under her parent’s roof.

We arrived at her parents home on a Friday evening, said “Hello, how’re you doing?” had dinner and relaxed with Mom and Dad. Although this was my first overnight stay, it wasn’t the first time I’d met Mom and Dad. That had happened the previous October. She and I and her roommate (now one of my dearest and most cherished friends), stopped by for lunch during a trip to see the autumn leaves along the Blue Ridge Parkway. The high point of this very special lunch came right at the end when Dad said, “Hey Foggy, c’mere and let me show you something.”

I followed Dad down into the basement where he walked over to a cabinet in the corner, opened it and said, “What’d you think?”

Yeah, I got showed the gun collection. He might as well have said, “I’ve got a .45 and a shovel, you won’t be missed.” Anyway, Dad was a nice guy and if I ever have a daughter you can bet I’ll do the same thing the first time her beaus come a calling. The one thing teenage boys never remember is their girlfriend's father was once himself a teenage boy, with all of the same thoughts and desires whirling around his sexually overcharged brain.

But back to the story at hand.

For most of us I’m sure this is a familiar situation: You’re visiting your college girlfriend or boyfriend’s house and Mom and Dad separate you and put at least one of you in the bedroom right next to theirs. It doesn't matter whose Mom and Dad, they all do it in my experience. My own mother once put Meg in the room next to her's, not even trusting her own son. Well, this was the situation facing Meg and I and, despite my time in the Marines, there was no way on God’s green earth I was going sneak into my girlfriend’s bedroom while Dad had the keys to gun cabinet on his nightstand.

So we suffered, alone and apart from one another for an evening. Truth be told, I probably slept pretty well considering I wasn’t sharing a twin bed.

Morning arrives, breakfast is served, the purpose for the trip (which absolutely escapes me now) is completed, lunch is eaten, bags are packed and loaded up, hugs and kisses for her, handshakes for me and we’re off, back to the beauty that was and still is Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

That three-hour drive back to campus was one of the longest journeys of my life, and that’s coming from a guy who’s driven solo from Pittsburgh to Jackson, Miss., in 16 hours. If you’re interested, it was and is a personal best of 1,010 miles in a single day.

We were so horny I swear to the Sweet Baby Jesus we almost stopped to get a hotel room for an hour. But, being poor college students, we endured the pain.

Back at the 10-storey, 1,000-student behemoth called Morrison Residence Hall our desperate heroes raced inside, up to my room (because my roommate was gone somewhere that weekend too) and into the loft for some frenetic, but sweet, sweet lovin’. (Sorry, had to take a moment there and reminisce. OK, all done, I’m back.)

Later, after our lusts were sated, we were lounging partially dressed in a post-boink euphoria when a noise suddenly and unexpectedly drew both of our eyes to the door. You could almost hear the eyeballs snap.

The knob was turning. In our haste to get nekid with each other, we'd neglected to lock the door.

I knew it wasn’t my roommate, I knew that for sure. Why you ask? Well, I hadn’t heard our traditional signal: a hand dragged across the window AC unit.

The door opened and my friend John walked nonchalantly into the room. This is my friend John (mentioned in this post, he was one of the two people making out on the elevator) who’s personal dating strategy was “hit on everyone and if you succeed 10 percent of the time you’re still getting laid a lot.” He did and he did.

As John reached the center of the room, he took a deep, lung-filling theatrical breath testing the air. He looked at Meg and turned to look at me and, with a raised eyebrow and a smile, posed a simple question.

“Who’s been fuckin’?”