I wholeheartedly admit to not always being the smartest tool in the shed. No, Mama didn’t drop me on my head as a baby, although she’s slapped it quite a few times as I was growing up. Even nowadays she’d whack me on across the noggin if she thinks I did something stupid. The last time I was home we were playing Uno and I dropped a Wild-Draw-Four on her and she whacked me across the back of the head. It happens so often my Dad and little sister barely took notice.

I remember when I was about eight years old or so, she was looking at something off in the distance. Her hand shaded her eyes in the bright sunlight. She said, “What in the hell is that?” Little me was standing next to her and I said, “What in the hell is what, Mama?” Clout across the back of the head, even though she said it first! Then I got another smack for raising that very subject.

Maybe my poor decision-making is genetic? Don’t tell Mama, she still swings a mean smack, and you get double if you duck! Well, I’m not sure what she would think about my latest fiasco, but I can feel the smack coming even if she doesn’t deliver it personally. No, no one’s in the hospital this time!

That only happened once, okay twice, but the second one wasn’t my fault, Larry’s dad was running late. Oh, you want to know about the first time? I was with Mark and Larry, the same Larry, but we’ll talk about that time later. Like I was saying, Mark, Larry, and I were up in Larry’s attic. You don’t know Larry’s sister Christine, Mark and I thought she was about the prettiest thing either of us had ever seen. We weren’t sure why we would get all tongue-tied if she was around, but we sure as hell did. We were juniors in high school and gorgeous girls had that effect on us! Larry would get a gross look on his face if we even mentioned it because she was his sister after all.

The problem was she was twenty and ignored us younger boys like we were diseased. As I said, we were up in the attic and could hear Chrissie in her bathroom taking a shower. Think about it, a boy in the attic above a naked gorgeous girl in the shower. This was not a recipe for making intelligent decisions. Rather than go into all the gory details, can we just say that wallboard will not hold the weight of a sixteen-year-old boy?

Yes, Mark went through the ceiling and pretty much landed on Chrissie, who screamed bloody murder and start kicking at him. Their mom rushed in and, well the end result was I was jealous of one of my best friends! You see, I couldn’t see much between the dust, broken ceiling, and the downed shower curtain, but Mark told me later he not only for an eyeful of a naked Chrissie but claims to have touched her boob on the way down. I can’t say I believed him, but part of me wished I had been the one to fall through the ceiling, broken wrist and all.

The second time it was Larry who went to the hospital. I guess it was that winter. Mark’s wrist was all healed up and we were fooling around in the snow. We were building ‘Calvin-n-Hobbes’ type snowmen and having a good time. The sun was starting to set and we all decided to try and freak out Larry’s Dad.

Now Larry’s Dad was one of those guys who always seemed to take everything in stride. Nothing ever fazed him, but it didn’t stop us from trying. So we built a special snowman right next to where he would be parking his car. Mark and I hid in the bushes and we waited. What we didn’t know was Mr. Markham had to make a stop on the way home and was running late. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but this time Larry was inside the snowman.

I guess we weren’t too bright and Larry suffered from a bit of hypothermia. Another trip to the hospital and another whack from Mama even though it wasn’t my idea, I swear it! Larry was fine, but he hated winter weather after that, for some reason.

So, there were lots of other foolish decisions, just nothing that required the hospital. What I would say is we three musketeers had our share of cuts, scraps, and other minor issues from the first day we met in school. They always seemed to stem from stuff we kept trying to do. I will say the shopping cart down Mill Hill when we were even younger was a mistake and could have caused a serious injury, but that car had no business being there!

Even how I lost my virginity was a bad choice, but the shots cleared that up. I got a lesson in picking and choosing much more carefully after that. It was embarrassing to have the health department show up at my house tracing ... what did they call it ... the infection vector. Whatever that was. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t shown up. I mean Dad was like all “boys-will-be-boys” and didn’t mention it to Mama. Then this guy in a suit with an official ID card showed up and Mama was not a happy camper and neither was my sore head after that. I swear she kept an eye on me like a hawk right up until the day I left for college.

Apparently, the story went around the high school as well and damn few girls were willing to be alone with me, even after everything cleared up. What made my life interesting was the ones that did want to spend time with me taught me a lot and I enjoyed those few lessons. Of course, sooner or later those stories found their way back to Mama who called me a pervert in a bad way while Dad just gave me a thumbs-up behind Mama’s back and taught me about safe sex. I am happy to say no more shots and no unwanted pregnancies, although one girl talked about a wanted pregnancy and I didn’t go down that path.

My worst decision back in those days haunted me for a while. I was seeing this lady, not a girl but a lady. I guess the modern name would be a cougar. She was pretty incredible to a high-schooler like myself and refused to take no for an answer about anything she wanted, including me. We spent quite a few days together before she went looking for someone else. The bad decision part was several months later when I was meeting my then girlfriend’s parents and the cougar turned out to be her Mom. No one would have found out if I hadn’t gone to my girlfriend’s house to pick her up and she wasn’t there, but her mother was. One thing led to another — remember I said this lady never took no for an answer? Needless to say, my girlfriend broke up with me, Her father wanted to kill us both. Actually, his words were he could have shot my dick off and his wife in the head with one bullet.

That kind of drove my decision to go to an out-of-state college after my senior year. The University was a blast and while I might have bent some of the rules, I didn’t do anything to get kicked out, but it was close a couple of times. Like when those two girls and I had a drinking contest. No stomach pumping was necessary, but it sure felt like I needed it. I think those two were professional drinkers! Like most students, I had a lot of fun and really enjoyed every minute of it. Some of the stuff I got taught by my cougar really came in handy. Do you know what happens when you get a reputation for willingly going down on a girl before she blows you? You get a lot of surprising interest!

I graduated, started working and after a while, I met a girl, the one I thought was The Girl! We did the dating and marriage thing, but it turned out to be another bad decision. I’m still shaking my head over what went wrong and while it is tempting to blame her, it really was both our fault — even if she refuses to admit her share of the blame.

So, that’s how I find myself hitting forty, single, no kids, and suffering my Mama’s occasional displeasure about no grandkids for her even though she never liked my choice of bride. I will never understand the logic of that. She didn’t like her from day one, yet now she regrets that I hadn’t had a bunch of kids for her to spoil.

I did a bunch of dating, but no one ever seemed to be someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. What also might have been part of the problem was my job took me all over the country for a couple of months at a time. It’s hard to build a relationship with anyone, even in your home town when you keep disappearing for long periods. So I gradually settled into what I thought was a pretty good life.

I mean I worked hard, made good money, had a good time traveling, meeting people, and never getting tied down. I was going to be in this particular town for three or four months, so instead of a hotel bill, my company rented me a pretty nice furnished apartment. I thought it was a good deal since my per diem always stretched more when I had a kitchen. One of my hobbies is that I do like to cook. I will admit being a bit of a food snob and preferred my own cooking certainly more than fast food or even most chain restaurants.

I had just moved in, the weather was nice and warm, the apartment complex had a pool and clubhouse, so I was looking forward to maybe meeting a few ladies. My first foray to the clubhouse hinted at some challenges. I hadn’t realized we were near a college and the apartments were mostly students. I have nothing against twenty-somethings, and some of them really looked spectacular, but I’m forty, and dating any of them wasn’t going to happen. We would have little in common and the idea of being seen as some pervy-old-guy was not something I was interested in, I had hoped the place would be loaded with some ladies around my age, preferably unattached — although from what you might have thought about my poor decision-making, that wasn’t always an issue.

I did draw the line at single moms! It wasn’t that I was against kids, it’s just that my little sister was one at the moment and the stories she told me about guys and being a single mom made me want to avoid being that stereotype!

It was a long week getting settled and I was looking forward to the weekend, I mean I had this new kitchen to try out. I often made large batches of food so I didn’t have to cook too often during the week. I decided on a nice large lasagna and a couple of loaves of bread. So after hitting a grocery and getting what I needed. I prepped the dough and while it was rising I built my lasagna. It was going to be a good one, five layers, shredded short ribs and spicy sausage, ricotta, parmesan, and mozzarella cheeses, and bechamel and tomato-based sauces. It was when the lasagna was almost done cooking I saw my neighbors.

I was up on the second floor and shared a set of stairs with one other apartment. The stairs opened on a balcony that spanned across the entrance of both apartments. It was warm out, but not hot enough to run the AC, so I had my windows open and I guess the smell of the lasagna cooking caught someone’s attention. It was almost done and I was prepping the bread loaves to go in next when I saw two girls on the balcony sniffing appreciably. They were very pretty and also very young. I would guess nineteen or twenty.

I realized they lived next door, but didn’t think much more about it. Not too long afterward, the lasagna was resting and the smell of baking bread filled the air. I took a beer and sat out on the balcony enjoying the weather. It didn’t take long before my neighbors came out and introduced themselves, Kay and Paula. They made so many appreciative noises that I invited them for dinner.