The Parents’ Curse Works - Page 3

This is only slightly preferable to the day my then-teenage daughter breached the subject of birth control as I was driving through the busiest intersection in town. I didn’t wreck, but that’s only because I went rigid. This allowed my vehicle to remain straight as an arrow. Good thing there were no curves ahead – in the road, anyway.

She and I had talked about many things for many years, and this topic of conversation was inevitable. I thought I was prepared, but I most certainly was not. She felt, as did I, that we could discuss anything, but there is a big difference between maintaining lines of communication and feeling like those lines have been wrapped tightly around one’s neck – especially at 55 mph.

It didn’t help that we were stationed at Camp Lejeune at the time - a Marine base sporting a large population of physically fit 18 to 25-year olds. It is a young women’s dream buffet, a veritable smorgasbord of healthy, handsome, and employed young men. When I was a younger wife, many was the time my girlfriends and I would schedule our lunch breaks around the daily three-mile run of several thousand Marines in little green shorts. It was a parade for popcorn and perversion.

To think my daughter could be interested in any of them — and they in her — changed my perspective on that line of lust completely. Those yummy younguns transformed before my very eyes - from warriors and heroes to warthogs and horny toads.

I had insisted with great fervor that my husband keep his collection of antique shotguns put away and out of sight forever. With as much fervor, I now wanted them locked, cocked, and on full display at our front door. He complied, but he wouldn’t stand “firewatch” at her bedroom window, saying no one of his rank should have to stand such duty, even for the Commanding Officer - in this case, his wife. It worked out, though, because I had underestimated the effect it would have on a young Private to bebop over to his date’s house, only to find himself face-to-face with an armed Gunnery Sergeant. Heh heh.

Article Author: Diana Hartman

Diana (nee Gulick) Hartman is the Culture and Tastes Editor for Blogcritics.org. She is a freelance writer, mother of three, and a (Ret.) US Marine spouse. She is a Wichita, Kansas native, having also lived in the California desert, Southern California, and eastern North Carolina. …

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