It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Ok, well actually it was around 2003, so it was neither of those times. But it was quite a memorable time. I was just a young whipper snapper back then, trying to find my way to graduation after the accident(s) tried to derail my progress. It was in the fall of 2003 that I somehow fell into a new group of acquaintances, and how that happened, I'm still not sure. Though the exact details escape me, I do know that all 6 of these new acquaintances were chicks (of course) and the first time we all hung out was when I was invited to help vandalize their friend's car at midnight on a Wednesday (ah, college). Three of these people would remain only acquaintances to me, while the other three would become friends, to varying degrees. Two of them, JM and Jo, were sisters and it was actually Jo, the younger of the two, that I took a shine to first. JM came off as almost all mean girl and was very guarded about a lot of stuff. Jo was outgoing and hilariously inappropriate, which is right up my alley.
Jo was not a classmate of mine, was actually a few years younger than the rest of us, but we really hit it off and became friends. She was attending a different college a few hours down the coast and living in the family home, where JM often visited on the weekends. They were right smack in the middle of a family that included 9 children, the youngest being around 15 and the oldest being in their late-20's, and mom and dad were uber protective of the whole brood. Six of the kids still lived at home, but the others often came by to visit, often bringing along their friends to hang out at the house. In my colleges days, AOL instant messenger was the go to way to communicate and we all used it to fill that time when we should be like studying and stuff. Unbeknownst to me, mom and dad had an AIM account that they shared and, unbeknownst to JM and Jo, they had all of their children's buddies added to their own buddy list and would IM them at will. I found this out on a Saturday afternoon when mom randomly IM'd me with, "Who is this?". I always love when someone messages you and they're the one's asking who you are. I got the vibe that it wasn't a college friend and my suspicions were soon confirmed when she said she was JM and Jo's mother and had heard about me from her girls. She asked a few basic questions and then invited me to some BBQ they were having the next day and I declined, but later ended up going anyway when Jo decided to have a take back her power moment and outsmart mom at her own game. The party had mostly the group of chicks I'd fallen in with, and a few friends of some of the siblings, plus mom to supervise. She and I had a few moments where we talked, but I tried to keep near Jo and stay out of trouble. For some reason, mom terrified me (I'd heard some stories, ya'll). Later that week, I got another IM from the parent's account that turned out to be dad wanting to get to know me a bit, since we hadn't crossed paths at the party. He seemed much more laid back than mom and we found we had a few things in common during our brief convo. He thought I was funny (I made a crack about the Mrs., could've gone either way but landed as I intended) and basically gave me the okay to be a friend to his daughters. But the following Monday ish hit the fan in a major way.
If there's one thing that amused me, it was when JM and Jo were both sending me messages at the same time. Jo had no sensor, she'd talk about anything and everything in graphic detail, while JM would withhold certain details when telling the same story. A CIA agent, Jo could never be. Never was that more apparent than when she popped up on Monday afternoon with a story about how her parents were on a witch hunt for who left an opened, unused condom in a trashcan at the house. These were cool parents, but they were absolutely non-negotiable about sex before marriage, whether it was in their house or not. Dad was concerned, but not looking to bust skulls, while mom wanted the culprit's head on a silver platter and Fonz knows what she'd do if she found out someone had had sex. Jo was like a reporter feeding minute-by-minute information back to the news desk as she told me mom was putting the spotlight on all of the kids and all of their friends until she got a confession of who the condom belonged to. Which, of course, made yours truly a suspect. Jo ratted out just about everybody, saying she knew it didn't belong to JM or any of the teenagers in the house because none of them were sexually active. She thought one of the teens had probably opened one up to see what it looked like and then tossed it away and therefore mom was having a coronary for no reason at all. Still, she advised me not to answer anything her parents sent my way, like an attorney advising their client to exercise their right to remain silent. And I did...kinda. I went undercover for awhile, logging off AIM the minute I saw mom log on. I thought I'd beat the system for a minute there. But nope. Mom was waiting for me one day and started beating around the bush, asking about the nature of my friendship with her daughters and how I'd recently been to the house and that sort of thing. I cut to the chase and said it wasn't mine and I didn't know who it belonged to and got the third degree about how I knew about the incident at all and whether I thought premarital sex was appropriate (spoiler alert: apparently it's not). Fortunately, she had to go soon after and I was somewhat let off the hook. But that didn't stop me from being terrified when I saw mom's screen name pop up a few days later with, "Hey you little troublemaker" (turned out to be Jo messing with me). Eventually, it was discovered the condom belonged to one of the older children who had opened it up and tossed it after seeing it was expired. Shortly thereafter, it was finals week for us college folk and everything calmed down.
That was the last time I interacted with mom or dad. My partying took me out of that group of friends and into another one and, a year or so later, I graduated and left both groups behind. Jo and I reconnected via Facebook a few years ago and pondered the idea of dating for a minute, but ultimately opted to be friends instead. She married over the weekend and I begrudgingly attended. I didn't want to go because I wanted to get home to Miss N, but Y insisted we make an appearance. I hadn't seen or spoken to JM in at least a decade and she seemed blown away by everything I said; that I'm a father now, that I'm no longer king of the party people, that Y and I are still best friends. She was oddly interested in me, more than she was all those years ago. Mom seemed to have mellow a bit over the years, greeting me with a hug and wanting all the details about my fatherhood (I left out that Miss N was a result of premarital sex and I think she assumed I'm divorced). Interestingly, it was dad that things seemed a bit weird with. I'd decided to keep my distance from him when fate intervened. I didn't know any of the groom's side of things, but was still going to go to the bachelor party festivities until I found out that all they were doing was going to a strip club. I begged Jo not to make me hang with them all night and she agreed I could come to the bachelorette party "as eye candy", (leading to that awkward moment where you're mistaken for a stripper. That happens to everyone...right? *crickets*). But before that, they were going to dinner and I couldn't go to that. What's a lad to do? I was relegated to the house, putting together wedding favors with dad. And I found out that he thinks I deflowered JM when we were in college. It probably did not endear me to him when I literally laughed at loud at the accusation. I never even considered JM anything more than a friend and had actually been more interested in her best friend. Dad wouldn't say where he got his intel, but I told him I'd never even thought of dating either of the daughters I was friends with. That didn't go down well either and we sat in awkward silence whilst finishing our work.
I hadn't thought about any of this for eons, man. It's insane, and a little insulting, to think all that happened over ten years ago. And it's kinda funny to think about where we ended up now. Jo never finished her degree and just got hitched. JM was supposedly going to be hitched with three kids by now, but she's newly single, having spent years involved with a dude she started seeing while he was married. Mom thinks I'm a good guy, dad thinks I'm the devil. Life is funny that way. But it was nice to see all the key players again.
