Of all the advice I’ve gotten regarding women, the most useful, yet unused, information I
ever received was bestowed upon me by my two most derelict uncles on my dad’s side of the family.

ADVICE FROM UNCLE ALBERT

Uncle Albert: “Stanly, (that’s me) there’s lots of women out there who’d love to have a
guy like you and they’d do anything to get you.  I mean a tall, good-lookin’, college
football player…”

Stanly: Stares blankly out the window of the car.

Uncle Albert:  “You know what I mean?”

Stanly: Stares blankly out the window of the car, heart racing, cheeks flushing ,
trying like Hell to disappear.

Uncle Albert: “Son, they’ll do anything. Get pregnant, or say that they’re pregnant…”

Stanly: Stares blankly out the window of the car, realizing he is actually dead and
has gone to a new level of Hell, “Uncle Albert’s Inferno”.

Uncle Albert: “I know your Dad and I didn’t always get along, but you gotta trust me.
Be safe.  I’m tellin’ you, man.”

Stanly: stares blankly out the window of the car, nods in Uncle Albert’s direction.

      Uncle Albert’s prophecy seemed so unfathomable that I could hardly stand it.  First of all
we don’t talk about sex.  I mean we do, but we don’t, and not with one’s derelict uncle who,
when he came back from Vietnam, threatened to confine his wife in a box ‘til death do they part.
Secondly, I was nothing special, so what the fuck was he talking about?  Third, I knew exactly
what he was talking about. His prediction had already come true about one year earlier.

      The summer before my senior year in high school, I could have been a daddy due to the
dishonesty-by-omission of a certain girl I knew at the time. She and I were both virgins when
we met, so already the story is quaint.  We thought we were in love. We had sex a few months
after we started going out.  This event was planned, complete with:

1. Birth control pills. She and I visited the OBGYN office together.  I waited in the lobby.
2. An afternoon after school when we knew my parents would not be home.

     The event commenced with the usual pain for her and three strokes until ejaculation for me. 
A few minutes later, after some comforting words, the two backed monster danced again, this time
for three and one half strokes.  We heard my parents come home soon thereafter, so we got dressed
and went upstairs.  There was no clean up, so I imagined semen magically disappeared once
deposited in a vagina. She never told me otherwise.

      Between that afternoon in January and that following summer, she and I managed to
have sex nearly 100 times.  I know this because she kept track on her calendar.  Each little red
heart she drew represented a completed act of traditional sexual intercourse.  Those little red
hearts folks draw also tend to symbolize love or at least the word love.  With her, with us, the
was interchangeable. “I you” could mean either “I love you” or “I fuck you”. We didn’t
intend it that way, but sometimes the semantics and love and sex get confusing. One fine Saturday
we ed each other six times, and were well on our way to seven when the complete discomforting
rawness was simply too much for our s to bear.  Not knowing anything of lubrication at our young
ages, we just had to stop.  Later that day, six dutiful s were drawn on her calendar.

     That was all very sweet, but when I found I would be heading to college to play football,
and she intended to stay in town and be a housewife, I realized I had to move on.  She thought
we would last forever and name our son "Cameron".  At times, I thought we would too.  I engaged
in the “since we're teenagers, let’s name our yet to be conceived children” game as well. It wasn’t
like I was with her just for the s. At the time I actually thought that  I ed her. But eventually,
fewer and fewer s appeared on the calendar as I tried to break up without hurting her feelings. 
Good luck.

     As it turned out, she had ascertained I was ready to move on as well, so she stopped taking
her birth control pills.  I really would have appreciated a little heads-up on her decision, but all’s
fair in and war, and apparently, this was ing war.  No one truly in love would commit an act
such as hers.  As destiny would have it, my otherwise tenacious genetic delivery system failed to
find her ovum’s address, so no unsightly teen pregnancy occurred.  When she finally confessed
her plan, the part of me that wanted to spare her feelings left abruptly, and the break-up was swift.

     Uncle Albert was right!  Did I listen? No!  From that point, as the words, “I’m tellin’ you man,”
echoed through my skull, I guess one could note my mounting skeptical view of the female
gender. One started by mom, sister, and even aunts and grandmothers, but perpetuated by
coming attractions.  The prophecy had fulfilled itself, and it was all how it was meant to be.
Or at least how I thought it would turn out anyway.

ADVICE FROM UNCLE MARTY

While driving in the company truck.

Uncle Marty: After gawking down the shirt of a woman in  another car.

“A man cannot live on bread alone.  He’s gots to have titties!”

Stanly: stares blankly out the window of the car, nods in Uncle Marty’s direction,
grins big.

     Not much to say about Uncle Marty.  He had frizzy hair.  Other than that, well...
I guess I don't the titties quite as much as Uncle Marty.