Skeletulle in the Closet

Patrick says, "What is that word I am looking for? Translucent? Imaginative? Carbon? No! I know!"

I wait.

"Well?" I finally ask.

"Well, what?"

"Well, what was the word you were looking for?"

"I'd rather not tell you. Do I have to? Do you insist that I tell you?"

And I say, no, I guess not, because who am I? The divulge a word or else enforcement committee? No.

But since it seems unfair that I - and I alone - will go to my grave never knowing what word could possibly exist at the intersection of translucent, imaginative and carbon I thought I would tell you that little story.

You're welcome.

I remembered to slather Patrick with sunscreen this morning, just not at a moment when he, I and the sunscreen were all within a hundred feet of each other. This is why he left for the school's all-day outdoor picnic completely free of SPF and glowing like a white beacon of epithelial Danger. I am not as crazy about sun safety as I am about choking hazards, but I am still plenty crazy enough for most purposes. So, of course, I drove to school and, of course, I was late and, of course, I did not know where the picnic was being held. Fortunately it is impossible to march anybody anywhere quickly (as Josephine said to Napoleon when she suggested he put off conquering Russia until the Spring) so it only took three or maybe four u-turns blithely executed on county highways before I spotted a mass of children disappearing over a distant hill. It should have reminded me of the Pied Piper; it actually reminded me of the battle hosts marching from Mordor.   

One of the things I love about Patrick is that he is never surprised to see me, even when I pop out at him from behind a bush as he and a couple hundred of his closest friends parade through a random suburban development en route to The Good Picnic Playground.

"Oh hello there, Mommy," he said as I materialized like a genie and his fourth grade buddy emitted a short sharp scream.

I coated him with sunscreen as he trotted along and then disappeared into the shrubbery again before someone could spot me and deputize me as a parent volunteer.

Caroline believes that you can bring a girl to the hippo seats but you cannot make her sit.

I call this The Dying Swan.

     

And I thought I worried about choking back when the children remained in an upright and locked position.

So am I to understand from your comments on my last post that I have never mentioned my first husband? Or, if I have done so, it was with such a lack of emphasis that it failed to register? You stun me. I would have thought at some point I would have put together one of those bloggy lists that are so popular.

Like:

Dummy Dope Things I Did When I was 23 -

1. Start law school
2. Get rid of that nice loveseat
3. Marry Andy

followed by

Marginally Smarter Things I Did When I was 24 -

1. Drop out of law school
2. Divorce Andy
3. Combine ham, cheddar and garlicky dill pickle slices on rye bread with dijon mustard

But I guess you'd know if you didn't know - and you claim you did not.

So when I say that I am afraid that one of my children will choke to death I mean that although I technically know the Heimlich manouever I am aware that I also technically know how to parallel park. Experience, however, has taught me that -  under pressure - my ability to back up at a forty-five degree angle before turning the wheel is nonexistent and I worry that my windpipe clearing skills are ditto. When I say that I am afraid of snakes I mean that I am afraid that one day a poisonous snake will leap out (possibly from a can of nuts but it could be from anywhere, really) and bite me and I will die, like Egypt's queen, unmourned by Rome. And when I say that I am afraid that one day I will be in that tiny private waiting room outside mammography wearing nothing but a hospital robe and that sitting two feet away from me reading Family Circle will be my ex-mother-in-law I mean exactly that.

I just typed a sentence, deleted it, typed another one and deleted that too. Apparently I am not particularly interested in telling you the story of my first marriage. It is all very sordid and embarrassing and there is not a single instant of it in which I appear to be remotely likable.

Tell you what. You tell me about the dumbest thing you ever did and then I'll come back and tell you the painful details (did I mention there were three roommates? and I dated them sequentially? and in the middle of the roommates I abruptly departed for Honduras to catch dengue fever while Julian corped for peace before abruptly leaving Honduras to pick up with the roommates again?) Yeah. It's a sweet romantic tale.

Speaking of actually sweet.

She runs!

She falls.

She's okay, folks!

PS Steve, who is crazy in his own right, refuses to allow me to create a sandbox in the yard because he is worried about random cats mistaking the sand for litter. I pointed out that we could make a cover and he pointed out that we would never remember to put it on. Fair enough. I then pointed out that the random cat who finds its way to our house will be so terrified by the coyotes that the last thing on its mind will be powdering its nose. Steve said no, no sandbox, but look at that great dirt pile I left for the kids! It's even better than a sandbox.

Caroline promptly slid down it on her face.

If one of you wants to mention that the dumbest thing you ever did was allow your spouse to convince you that the dregs of a topsoil delivery qualified as a sandbox substitute, feel free.

PPS I probably should mention that I dread meeting my e-m-i-l because the last I checked fifteen years ago she hated me and she was right to do so. I would be mortified. She was perfectly nice.

Comments

[Kristin]

Possibly the dumbest thing I ever did was mourn for 6 months over the loss of a fiance who in no way, shape, or form would EVER have made decent husband material. Dodged a bullet with that one! But I didn't know that then and wasted months and months and MONTHS in a deep blue funk about him, his new girlfriend, his cheating ways... and just to put a cherry on it, I slept with his roommate.

23 is a BAD age...

[Amy]

I was 23 when I did the dumbest thing I can think of off the top of my head! I got scammed out of $300. There was some ad in some paper about reading children's book manuscripts for money. So I called and was suckered into paying $150 to buy this kit they had or something. Then they talked me into buying another $150 kit for some other related thing. "It's totally refundable if it doesn't work for you!" But you had to keep it for 3 months, at which point they had anished off the face of the earth. Hmph.

[L]

I guarantee that a sandbox will indeed turn into a litter box, probably within days of installation. We had a sandbox growing up that was always. always. filled with cat poo, and I think I just wasn't bright enough to realize that the clumpy bits were really cat pee. Don't do it!

As for stupid things I've done: my freshman years of both high school and college pretty much cover it. Meeting my now-husband on my 21st birthday actually probably saved me many many many regrets. He is a gem, and thankfully, his mother is too.

[Kristin]

I vaguely remember you mentioning a first husband but I don't have a clue what the context was. I think the dumbest thing I ever did was when I was also 23. I purposely set out to seduce a barely legal 19 yr old (but he was legal). Eeek...when I think back and realize the potential ugliness of that situation.

[sarah]

I too managed to get married early, but on the cusp of 23, rather than fully 23. I married my girlfriends boyfriend. How's that for sordid? We were in a sort of kind of open relationship where I was in lvoe with her and she dated guys, and then she went ot Brazil for a month, and I took up with her boyfirend, CRAZY MOTHERFERR! Got engaged second month, married the 6th month, and divorced a year and ahalf later. The best thing that happend was that he got a Post doc at Hopkins, I moved to Baltimore, met all the most fabulous people ever, got divorce, discovered my brain, moved to cambridge and eventually wended my way back to California to marry my wonderful, if a bit balanced translocated husband, and have the career of my dreams. Dang. We're practically twins. I showed you my crazy, nwo you show me yours. Of course, I now have a bob, drive an SUV and pass for a person whe never did a nutty thing in her lfe. Ha.

[sarah]

I never want to run into my ex mother in law either. She had to consider wheter or not to give me a stamp for a letter, and decided 'yes' because I was making dinner for her that night. Cheap cheap cheap bitch. Yeesh. My new mother in law is a little anxious, but a gem.

[You will know who I am from my e-mail...]

The dumbest thing I ever did was so dumb, I need to be anonymous for this comment. When I was 23, I had an affair with my married boss.

[Yatima]

OH SO MANY CHOICES. How to pick just one? Can I have three? I'll take, hmm, let's see - starting the PhD - persuading Mr Wrong to take me back - and then staying with him for another TWO YEARS. Ai yi yi.

[Lesley]

I remember you mentioning your first husband, but there weren't many details : )

Meeting my husband when I was 25 saved me from a long, long string of dumb decisions (i.e. boyfriends - from 18 until 25 I just kept picking winners!).

The dumbest of them all? Dating my 18-year-old student when I was 24 (in Japan, at a private company, nothing unethical about it, just stupid). In my defense I had no idea how old he was until we were, ahem, involved. I had forgotten how crazy and intense teenagers could be, and when his smothering, controlling ways drove me so nuts I broke up with him, he went a little berserk. It wasn't pretty. Lesson learned.

And 8 months later I met the love of my life, and we have now been married for 13 years! So it all worked out : )

[Bella]

OH MY!!! Spill the story. I can't WAIT to hear it. Seriously, you were married?! I cannot believe I missed that.

The best and worst thing I did was sleep with my professor in grad school. It was the worst thing because how clearly stupid was I being? He was recently separated, totally on the rebound, 19 years older than me, he had an 8-year old kid, and he was my most esteemed, most respected, freaking PROFESSOR! He was supervising my Masters thesis. BAD IDEA. After 3 years of being together, we got married 10 years ago and it's the best thing, short of my kids, that's ever happened to me. We've been together for 13 years but we both still maintain that, objectively, it was a bad idea. But it worked out swimmingly. surprisingly.

[margot]

Oh man. Wow, I feel so much better! I wasn't the only 23 yr old with some decidedly unlikeable behavior! I think all will say is my ex's best friend and...then my best friend's ex. Rest assured I did a LOT of apologizing that year.

[Ashlee]

I started reading your blog when you were pregnant with C & E, fell in love with you, and promptly read all your archives. I knew you were previously married, and I feel like I remember you saying you were still married to husband #1 when you met husband #2? Yes? It's weird, but I've often thought about asking you to share more details about it since you share so much about all the other aspects of your life. I'm excited to hear the story!

I lost my virginity at 20 yrs old to my best friends boyfriend of 3 years when they were on a "break". They were broken up for less than 2 days. Yes, lots of Vodka was involved. Not my proudest moment. They broke up for good 6 months later. I never confessed to her, and now we've drifted apart over the years. I'm actually grateful I never did have to tell her.

[Hetty Fauxvert]

The dumbest thing I have done *lately* involves 2-yo twins and a sandbox (no, really!) We were able to locate the new sandbox inside a closed area, so no worries with cat poop. But ya know what? The instant you look away from the twins, do you know what happens? They rub that damned sand in each other's hair!!!!!!! Right down to the scalp! And do you know what it's like to try and scrub that stuff out of their curls while they insist that you're waterboarding them?! I bought 200 lbs of play sand for the damned sandbox and we've used it once. Once. That was a month ago. I still need to shovel the sand out of there and get rid of the sandbox.

Don't say you haven't been warned.

The other dumbest thing I did was get not one, but two degrees in theater. You don't need a degree in theater unless you intend to teach it, and I hate teaching. But my mother insisted that if I wanted to be an actress (my idea) I had to have a fallback position and she was insistant that it be teaching (her idea). I have done absolutely nothing with those degrees. Dumber than a rock. Jeez.

[anon]

I also have too many to list, and quite a few involve questionable romantic choices. I had a tendency to not break up with one flame until I was already involved with his replacement, but to then to dally with same former flames without letting their replacements know.

I am still chagrined. No, flamingly embarrassed.

At one point I was sleeping with four different people at once. My "legit" boyfriend didn't know about any of the other three. The others thought I was two-timing the "legit" guy, but didn't know about the other two. And all three had once been the "legit" boyfriend I had cheated on with the next-in-line.

Does that even make sense on paper? I had a hard time sticking to breakups.

At 27 years old, I resolved to reform my cheating ways. I relapsed ever-so-slightly at 29, but only briefly, and have been entirely honest and monogamous since I turned 30.

[Karishma]

i have long wondered about the first husband, but i never wanted to ask. and yeah, it was always mentioned in passing, i think it just shows how i read every word that you write that i even caught it. :)

i mean seriously, every time i think that i have finally figured out just how much i love your writing you come up with a post that makes me love you even more.

soooo if this is a trade of my dumb mistake to hear this story, here goes..... how about my entire freshman and sophomore years of college? lol easy classes, was so overprotected in high school that i hadn't had a drop of alcohol until the second day of college.... you get the picture. i think the apex of my dumbosity was the night i effing fell down the staircase of a nightclub while i was trying to convince my friend that i was TOTALLY FINE. of course, i also fell in full view of a bunch of kids who knew us, and a bunch of equally judgemental overprotected kids who know my family/parents.... oh dear god. it was bad, for someone who comes from a conservative family.

[anon for this!]

I started dating my boss's ex before I left the company, and I desperately needed her good graces for a letter of recommendation to another program. He and I got married and she and I are still friends, so it all came out in the wash, but VERY STUPID on paper and if our daughter came to me with that story I'd warn her not to be a dumbass.

[Nellabean]

I didn’t know how to gracefully break up with my long distance boyfriend so after he drove 8 hours to see me I: refused to look at or talk to him, mooned around after another guy in front of him, and then gave him the “it’s not you, it’s me” stutter. I still feel so badly about the way I acted I shudder to think of bumping into him some day. In my defense, I was 16. And stupid. In some ways I think that the dumbest part of this story is that I'm still embarrassed about what happened over 15 years ago - but I think about how his face fell and the guilt, the Guilt, it is fresh.

PS – if your story about your ex is as good as your story about your friend’s suburban nudist parents and your plight with “Bob”, I’m desperate to hear it.

[Brenna]

Basically my whole life from 15 until 20. I dated a string of unemployed, unemployable, directionless losers. I nearly married two of them!

[anon also]

In a fit of being 20 years old, I cheated on my boyfriend during a summer away when we were going through a turbulent time and convinced myself I was in love with the guy I cheated with. Many pronouncements of fate and all that bullshit; he was going abroad to fancy famous school to get his master's in the fall so there was much talk of a dramatic transatlantic love affaire.

He dumped his sort-of girlfriend and visited me back at school on his way out of the country and...whoops, what do you know, I dumped him in a hotel room on the beach and left him to hie himself to the airport the next day, four days earlier than his planned departure.

I paid for my sordid tryst partner's change of airline ticket, but still. Last I heard he is hating me yet from across the ocean, where he remains still. I worry I will run into him on a city street one day and it will be terrible.

I think there is a sort of catharsis in admitting terrible deeds done in matters of the heart. Doing it once in a while keeps me honest. I got back together with my boyfriend (we had broken up for other reasons well after I started dallying) and we remain together to this day, me with a new sense of appreciation for his many virtues. He doesn't know and as God is my witness he never will.

I was an idiot and I learned my lesson. I also learned it is very easy to act a fool at any age and people who get all imperious on their high horse "WELL I NEVER" about cheating had best stop clutching their pearls. It takes hard work to be monogamous in your 20s, dammit.

YOUR TURN!!!!

[another anonymous]

the whole boss thing...approx. 23....was living with someone...bad, v v bad. The stupidity of youth

[Helen]

Strangely enough it involves copious amounts of alcohol..Christmas party for my University Sports Team...being an impoverished student I was really looking forwards to eating in a nice restaurant to the point that I didn't eat during the day so that I could enjoy it all the more. Are you getting any idea yet? We started out with several drinks all round...the rest of the evening was unfortunately immortalised on film - me ripping my blouse open, me sitting on inappropriate knees, me falling over about 6 times between the restaurant and the nightclub...the utter humiliation is that despite the blank that was the rest of the evening I vividly remember being refused entry to said nightclub and trying to persuade them in a very loud voice that I was on antibiotics and that was why I couldn't actually stay vertical...cringing and blushing right now...

[Anon for this]

Oh dear, where do I start? Taking up with a Green Tortoise bus driver whilst engaged. (Not to this husband, for the record). Having an affair with a married man. Ewww. My 20s. Shudder.

[dumbass]

Following my boyfriend to Finland for a year without knowing a word of Finnish... not dumping him after he cheated on me with my only friend the very first weekend we got there...

This was all much more recent than I'd like to admit.

[still embarrassed over parts of this story]

I guess I'm advanced, because I got my Dating Guys Who Are Clearly Not Good For Me phase out of the way by my late teens. You might think, "How bad could it have been?" Bad enough, I say. Bad enough. The guy I dated in high school was from a seriously dysfunctional family, so of course I loved them and spent as much time as I possibly could with them. Did I mention the dad was a recovering alcoholic and the whole family was deep in the AA/Alateen/Al-Anon culture? Not that there's anything wrong with it, it's saved many many lives, but I look back and wonder why I as a 17-year-old honors student thought this family was such a great one to hang out with. Hmm, maybe I just answered my own question. Oh, and he kept breaking up with me and then wanting to get back together the minute I started moving on with my life--AND I TOOK HIM BACK REPEATEDLY.

I finally broke up with him in college after a summer when we worked at different camps as counselors and he never wrote me a single letter (this was before email was everywhere) the entire summer. Then in order to get over him, I went back to college and almost immediately lost my virginity in an ill-advised fling with a co-worker. Better yet, I was an RA in a dorm and he was my partner RA who lived on the same floor as me. I came to my senses within a month or two, the fling was over and ancient history, but he was impossible to work with the rest of the year. Oy, real smart thinking on my part. (It worked, though, I never was even tempted to get back together with my ex!)

[anon]

So many ill-advised flings, many of them very recent. To mark a significant birthday I wanted to do something wild so I started, ahem, "dating" couples. At first it was adventurous, then depressing. What was supposed to be fun and no strings attached became all too real. All four couples I met aren't together anymore and I can't help but feel as if I was part of the demise of their relationship. Not the cause (I have no illusions that I'm that important), just part of the end. Have sworn off adventure of that type for good. Live and learn.

[peeks]

I got a mortgage with an emotionally abusive man when i was 19. twit. oh and then there was a recession and it got even worse....

[twangypearl]

Here goes (cringe): When I was 13 or 14 I had a boyfriend, (if you can call it that when you are so pathologically awkward you never can bring yourself to kiss him). Eventually after weeks of this self-inflicted torment, I broke it off with him, with the excuse that I was very upset because I had heard a school friend had died. That would have been sad, wouldn't it?

If, say, it had been true?

(URG. Poor kid.)

[sara]

Slept with shrink. Point and match.

[Laura]

Listen Julia, I am de lurking so that we can get to the bottom of this choking thing (or should that be the thorax?) I am a long time fan of yours from England, a little village called Lower Beeding about an hour and a half out of London. I too have three adorable creatures who might ingest something unsuitable and turn blue at any moment, and choking was totally my paranoia during infancy 1 and 2 (see, I had mine sequentially unlike you). However by infancy 3 here in Europe we were all going crazy for "baby led weaning" which is essentially "ditch the mush and give the child a piece of something to mumble from as soon as they can sit up unaided" (c.6months). Now I had a major internal conflict on my hands: choking paranoia vs my personal parenting philosophy, namely if there is an easy way out, then take it (no purees! what glee!) I gave baby led weaning a whirl, but only having secured the presence of my good friend who is a family physician who was in attendance with her third child, born within days of my own, for the little experiment.

And so it was that I came to understand the difference between gagging and choking. She explained to me that when a bit of food touches the back of the throat, the natural instinct is to gag to bring it forward. Here's the important part: THIS IS NOT CHOKING, nor even a prelude to it. I had always thought that at that point we were seconds away from a medical crisis, but apparently not! And what do you know, you can actually hear that the child is breathing fine, even while they are gagging and sorting themselves out.

So I took my courage in both hands and let my little one put whatever (edible) she wanted in her mouth from that point, under strict (and whenever possible medical) supervision, and it went just fine. She gagged multiple times in the course of the next 6 months, but now aged 14 months has pretty much stopped and can feed herself confidently almost anything. It has made me much more relaxed about the whole choking thing - it's rarer than you might think.

I suspect you are too far gone in the choking paranoia to find this remotely useful, and indeed you may well already know this cutting edge medial info, but I offer it up in case it makes supervising the hippo chairs more relaxing. It will at least I hope provide more evidence for some of your readers that Europe is a strange and foreign place, with surprisingly barbaric customs, even after hundreds of years of post Renaissance cultural influence.

Thanks for your writing - I enjoy it so much. Do you mind being thought of as a "guilty pleasure"? You are one of mine.

[Laura]

oops, just realised I broke the string of confessions...sorry. Carry on ladies! As you were!

[illahee]

i got into a stranger's car in the middle of the night because he offered me a ride home. ugh. and i was old enough to know better, but it happened in japan and i didn't want to wait an hour for the bus. nothing happened, thank goodness but geeze that was pretty fricken stupid....

[not THAT honest]

As far as stupid things, nothing in my life can top the year when my husband and I invite another woman into our life (and her daughter) to come live with us and sleep with us...literally, we were sleeping in the same bed...AND then that SAME year my husband having an affair with a woman at his job while I confided everything to the woman living with us, whom I thought I loved...oh, right, and then kicking the woman out once we realized how she had played one of us against the other while having sex with both of us...then becoming pregnant shortly after that, and now living a very wonderfully suburban life in the end. Seriously. I couldn't make that up.

[Debbie in the UK]

The dumbest thing I ever did was getting married at 21. What was I thinking, and what were my parents thinking allowing this to happen?

We are still married and have 2 wonderful kids, but I still think I should have waited and seen more of life.

I was an idiot.

[Another anonymous commenter]

Oddly enough, considering what I'm about to write on my blog, I guess I do have some things I won't publicly write about online. Although, like the commenter above, I'll use my real email address, so you'll know who matches up with the sordid details.

I think I might have only been 22, but 23 isn't out of the realm of possibility. I slept with my brother's po*n star girlfriend (I'm female, btw), just because I could and because I thought it would make a good story when I was old. Okay, she was cute, too...and she chased after me, which being kind of lazy (and a bit insecure), I liked a lot. I knew it was probably only going to happen once. I think the part I regret the most is going over to his apartment with her right afterwards. It was awkward and she kept staring at me, in a kind of goofy, "Hey, baby" way.

I guess I felt justified in that I knew he wasn't going to marry her, and that she slept with other people for a living. It still wasn't right, although I don't regret it either. Hey, she was cute! And right now, I'm mad at him for a variety of reasons, so it makes me not regret any part of it. He knows that it happened, but there are certain details I'm sure we (the gf & I told him separately) both left out. Right about now, I'd like to rub it in, along with the fact that I'm not 50 and I have all of my hair...and probably always will.

[Me again]

Did you know that you can't write out the word p-o-r-n on your blog? It rejects the whole comment, yet doesn't tell you why.

[Jen]

My dumb moment came younger than 23. 18 actually, and like you, I lovingly refer to my dumb moment as "My first Marriage" The signs were there, and I chose to ignore them. So, I will impart my wisdom you so that you and your readers so that you will not make the same mistakes I did: If his proposal consists of the following: "Well, I already knocked you up, so what do you say we go ahead and get hitched?" As he half heartedly throws a gold band on you lap...RUN. Even more so if you are still in the Walmart parking lot where he painstakenly picked out said gold band. If you do decide to marry the guy who knocked you up, and you are still pregnant when you marry him...wear shoes...if you forget to bring them, go back and get them...bare foot and pregnant as you go down the aisle is NOT a good start. Sadly, this advice comes too late for me...

[Karen]

Dumbest thing I ever did was move out to the East Coast, after college to live with my totally unsuitable fiance, in his house with his mother and widowed grandmother, and attend a sub-standard graduate school while working three different jobs.

After nine months the thought popped into my head, while vacuuming my room: "You need to get out of here." So I did. I attribute that epiphany directly to God, because heaven knows I'd been busy living in denial about the situation up until then.

[Elle]

Wow, what is it about 23? I honestly don't feel so bad anymore after reading all these stories, but uh, I'm still 23 right now. So it's fresh.

I have a friend that I am currently not speaking to. We have been best friends more or less since we were twelve (although there was one period of a year of teenage estrangement, over nothing except how girls can be at that age I suppose). Perhaps that previous sentence gives some clues where this is headed. Like all best friends, we confide in each other about all our relationship woes. After my last bad breakup I decided I was done dating for a little while. Which has turned into four years now. She went through a bad breakup at the same time, but soon after she met this guy. He was adamant that he did not want a girlfriend, but he would sleep with her. Except for when he's telling her he can't do this anymore. And she assured me she was fine with this in between crying on my shoulder over it.

Of course I begged and pleaded with her to end it. She's a gorgeous girl, much more attractive than I am, I've always thought. But I didn't expect she would listen to me, and sure enough she didn't.

As this went on for three years, I never met this guy. Considering how often she and I were together (every minute she wasn't with him) this was something.

She decided to spend last summer in Europe, partly to get away from this guy, and I threw her a big, elaborate, going away party (partly inspired by you, Julia-- all your fault?). I had hors d'ouvres, brie and wine, gourmet home-made cupcakes which I dubbed "Chocolate Cherry European Affair," and we wore heels and cocktail dresses. It was all very grown up. And she invited HIM and he came.

She was nervous as anything. And I was simply shocked. How many stories about this guy had I heard over the years? I was picturing some ice demon King to be able to resist the obvious charms of my dearest friend. I knew so many intimate details about him I was naturally curious when I finally saw his face, spoke to this mythic elusive person.

He spent the entire night talking to me. He ignored her. He couldn't seem more interested in anything that I was wanting to talk about. When I mentioned I was writing something he insisted he wanted to read it, and I turned out to be easily flattered. I got his email address and he begged me to use it. After the party we had a sleepover, me and my best friend cuddled in my bed, and I could tell even then that she was not happy. She told me she didn't want me to contact him while she was gone, and I said okay. But then he called me several times and left messages. He got my number from the going-away party invitation.

I didn't sleep with him. But things transpired as you can imagine. She came home after two months, bit by bit it all came out. She forgave him as I knew she would. For awhile she blamed me but then she forgave me too. But things just weren't the same for me, and I couldn't take all the subtle jabs and antagonism. I feel so guilty anyway. And part of me, a horrible part, is upset that they are still continuing on in their relationship limbo after all that.

But all these stories give me hope that people move on someday. Someday it won't seem like such a big deal. Someday I won't be 23.

[Anonymous]

I also need to be anonymous for this one. I put paid to an already rocky marriage by having an affair with a married coworker. And now I'm paying the price as I watch my marriage go down the drain.

[anonymous]

Wow. This whole string of comments is making me feel SO much better about that 6 month marriage when I was 28. Thank you.

[Rayne of Terror]

Luckily I met my husband days before my 19th birthday and although our getting together was not well planned, shall we say, 13 years, 8 years of marriage, law school, one child and one on the way later, things are still going swimmingly. My but there was a lot of stupid from age 16 to 18, roughly coinsiding with nerd boarding school.

Let's see. How about when serious boyfriend #2 broke up with me, him from college and me a senior, I pitifully cried, What about prom? Or shortly thereafter offering to make out with his best friend with no strings attached. Thank goodness he said no. Or turning down a totally lovely friend who wanted to date me and instead mooning (for a year) over another boy who promptly returned to Colorado. And there's more. I blush.

Of course all these young men are now my friends on facebook and twitter.

Why didn't I spend time tending to my female friendships instead?

[Jenna]

Okay, I want to hear the story, so I'll share. I was 16, he was 26. (See the problem already?) He was the original rich boy from Boston. I was an army brat from all over. He was in law school in NY, I was in high school in NC. I lied to my parents to see him, flying all over the place and they never knew I did. ( Still don't) When I met his mother, Cruella DeVille, she introduced me at a fancy party as "the gold digging slut my son thinks he loves." Amazingly, Ted seemed unfazed while I died a thousand deaths. My "love" just stood there drinking his Scotch. He had a drinking problem, that he used cocaine to help with it, too. It took me more than 3 years, tons of his cheating, breaking-up to make-up, and an engagement ring followed by a slap to make me realize he was a true a$$. Thankfully, I walked away before I married him. He now lives 50 minutes from me and shows up in the same circles occasionally as hubby and I are lawyers. Yuck. He married a woman who looks like me and GAVE HER THE SAME RING. So see, if we never made stupid decisions we would not get the stories out of them. The ring thing still makes me laugh. Wonder what he told her the inscription meant to her???

[Becky]

I have never, ever done anything remotely stupid or ill advised in my whole life because I AM SHE-RA!

Anyway... we have had very good luck with one of those turtle sandboxes you can get from the Most Evil big box store, filled with fair trade rice to even things out. You have to keep the rice dry so we keep it in our front entrance which is covered and have trained to children to put the cover back on (so we don't worry about forgetting) but anywhere with some sort of overhang will be sufficient. Rice doesn't stick to your clothes, they can eat it and there doesn't seem to be as much concern about cats and, bonus, you really can't pretend that fill dirt is the same as rice.

[Kelly]

Are you kidding?! Dirt piles are the greatest invention to kid-kind! My two boys (well, one boy a few years ago with the first dirt pile) were in heaven when we had dirt delivered (new construction means no lawn means we made one). This past spring when we got more dirt for the garden boxes they were in heaven again. Dirt is fantastic. Dirt far surpasses sand boxes (we have one, they play in it because we make them). If you care, you can see them cavorting here: http://www.assortednutz.com/blog/?p=1053

As for the most embarrassing thing I ever did I also had a "starter marriage" only mine lasted 4yrs as several months after we married he moved back to the US from "fear of deportation" (which was absurd at the time) and I waited almost 2yrs for him to do paperwork to get me official status and let me join him before taking matters into my own hands and moving down on my own, living with him for a year, realizing I didn't need to be abused anymore thankyouverymuch, and leaving him. It was definitely a learning experience.

[Elizabeth_K]

I got married at 26 because it seemed I was too old to live alone and why not ... less than a year later I was sorry and sad and about to start an affair, which is also sorry and sad, and so I left. I want to hear the sordid details of your marriage --- not because I will judge you, but because you make even the worst stories so funny.

[Megan]

Okay, now I need to know about your first marriage or I will die of curosity. Sadly, I have done way too many stupid things to write here, but one is that one time on a family beach vacation in the Cayman Islands I managed to get myself sent to jail...in my bikini. No cover up. No shirt or pants. Just a bikini. Awesome. I did eventually get out and managed to lie to my family until I told my Mom a month later thinking it was such a funny story. She did not think it was quite so funny. Yep, I'm pretty sure I was about 22 or 23 at the time.

[Megan]

Let's see - married at 19 which was the SMARTEST thing I did to that point (no really, it was, great marriage and grew me out of the complete idiot I was at the time), but prior to that:

Went out of state to college for grand total of one semester during which I attended grand total of one class (meaning I only went to that class. I did attend another one, but only once). Also was majoring in drama. Also dated three guys at once. Also nearly took up with a friend's boyfriend. Also drained my bank account. Also... really enjoyed the whole thing so does this count?

Met future husband and didn't stop dating boy I had been obsessed with for years (who treated me like crap). Also didn't stop dating other boy. Or the other one either. Excused self by saying, "well, we never SAID we were going out." Left future husband with life-long hatred for the name Sean.

Followed future husband to Utah and proceeded to make his life a total misery while his friends told him to stop thinking with his dangly bits and ditch me. They were right. He didn't.

There are others, natch, but those are the ones that are far enough away in time that I'm willing to write them down!

[Michelle]

Dumbest? Accepted a drunken marriage proposal on one of those cheesy love song dedication shows on the radio (BONUS: It was MY cheesy love song dedication show). The fact that he was drunk when he asked wasn't all that strange because he was drunk ALL THE TIME yet I thought I could "change him".

Fortunately, I pulled my head out in time and did not actually marry the guy.

Phew!

[Kirsten]

Gosh, so many mortifying tales to choose from, AND apparently, I have a lot in common with your other readers! Was the worst having unprotected sex throughout high school with college guys who picked me up behind my house? Or could it be meeting and dating the most wonderful guy when I was 18, but losing him because I couldn't give up booty calls with the other guy? Or perhaps (like others) sexing up a grad school professor who was 18 years older and who dumped me for someone YOUNGER???!?!?! I see a sex theme here - thank god for my sweet husband and two beautiful children! Happy Endings...

[Gina]

The dumbest thing I ever did was lose my virginity to a stranger in a one night stand.... one month before I met my husband of 21 years!! Talk about regret.