Condom Preparedness

Late 1983, I was 16 years old. I had discovered a condom vending machine in a local gas station restroom.

I and my best friend of the time decided we really needed to have a condom for the opportunity that we knew would inevitably arise, soon. It’s always good to be prepared, and first sex was not a situation we wanted to find ourselves in unprepared. The two of us discussed it, and we made a plan.

The restroom was located outside the station, around on the left side. We’d drive into the parking lot (using our freshly earned driver’s licenses) via the left entrance to the parking lot, and park right in front of the restroom door. We’d both get out of the car together, but only one would go into the restroom at a time. The other would hang outside the door keeping watch.

The one inside would put in his two quarters, turn the dial, and get his condom pack. He’d come out and take watch for the other to go inside. We’d then both get in the car and drive away, out the left exit from the parking lot.

Our biggest concern was that the ladies room was adjacent to the men’s room — what if a woman walked up to or came out of their door? We’d have to be fast so to reduce the chance of that happening.

At the time, we were very serious with our plan. We were shy, 16-year-old boys secretly acquiring something that only adult men with mustaches needed. Having a condom was the first step into the Playboy mansion, we thought.

We also believed, without actually saying it aloud, that just having a condom would increase the chance of having that first sex experience. I mean, if you’re prepared, it’ll give you confidence to pursue that first experience. Right?

We drove away from the gas station a little faster than we should have, but we both had our treasure. The package was a thin square box with the brand name on it (not Trojan) and the fine print instructions and warning that no one actually reads. Neither of us had actually seen a condom “out of the box,” but we weren’t about to waste ours by opening it prematurely. We were confident we could figure it out when the time came to use it.

I don’t know what my friend did with his, but I hid mine in my bedroom. I had a big stereo system (a hand-me-down from my dad) with an 8-track tape player. I didn’t own any 8-track tapes — I only had vinyl records — so the tape player was useless, mostly. It became the treasure chest to conceal my condom.

The first couple of weeks after buying the condom, I would carry it with me, in my jeans pocket when I went out to the mall. But soon, I all but forgot about it. It just stayed in the 8-track tape slot all day and night, every day and night.

A few months later, when I came home from out somewhere, my mother met me in the kitchen. “What’s this?” she asked, holding up the thin, square package.

I stammered incoherently for several seconds. “Um,” I at last managed to squeak out, “where did you get that?”

“Your brother found it in your room,” she said.

Through the embarrassment, I thought, Why did he look in my 8-track tape player slot? It still, to this day, confounds me, what made him look in my 8-track tape player slot? Why would he even look in it? It’s just a slot in my stereo system.

I was sent to my room. Sitting in my room, on the edge of my bed, I was trembling with embarrassment. I was also strongly angry at my 11-year-old brother for nosing through my room enough to find the condom in the perfect hiding place.

My mom never followed through with anything on the situation. I figure she thought the embarrassment was enough. My older step-brother told me, a little while later, that he had suggested to my mom that it was probably something passed around on the school bus, and I just ended up with it. My mom seemed to accept that as an explanation, and I never disabused her of that idea.

But then I didn’t have a condom available if the need for one came about. I sure as heck wasn’t going to buy another one any time soon. And without feeling prepared for the occasion, I lost my false confidence (it was a confidence I felt only when no girls were in sight) for pursuing my first experience.

My mom had taken away my mojo. And it was all because my brother was friggin’ nosing about in my room. Damn being a teenager, with an attentive mother and a nosy little brother.

Bullgrit