Way back when dinosaurs walked the earth – ok, the mid to late 70’s – my family lived in a small house in Norfolk, VA. It was pretty cool because we moved from Navy housing to this cute little house in your typical blue collar neighborhood. It was the first time we had ever had a fireplace, too. We were so excited by the fireplace that when we moved in we immediately threw shit into the fireplace and had ourselves a lovely, roaring fire. In the sweltering summer. I believe it was August.

But I digress from the topic. The house was small and had four bedrooms. I had my own room upstairs, my sisters shared a room and my parents had their master bedroom downstairs. We used the extra room as the ‘pool table room’, but the room was too small so we would always have to take apart the pool cues to make shots or we would leave these scuff marks and dents in the wall. At the time my parents were in their late 30’s while my sisters and I ranged from age 7 – 12.

Just because you’re in your late 30’s and parents doesn’t mean that your sex drive dissipates.

See, my sisters and I had no idea what the hell was going on. During that era, all we were concerned with was Barbie, Matchbox cars, and other brainless kidstuff. We had no idea what sex was. To us, sex was taking my Superman doll and making him kiss my sister’s Barbie doll. We had an inkling, of course, because my sister would press them together tightly, facing each other, and say ‘Look! They’re in love making babies!’. I didn’t get it.

But my parents…those poor, poor people. We were atypical children. We are a very close family and during those ‘wonder years’, we were mama’s boys and daddy’s girls – real basket cases who rarely wandered away from their parents. So when Dad got a twinkle in his eye (and tingle in his pants) and he and Mom went to their room for some ‘alone time’ they were aghast when we wanted to go with them. What the hell did we know? We didn’t know they wanted to doink! We thought they were just going to their room! There were countless times when we would go to their room and just flop on the bed and talk with our parents so why couldn’t we go with them now?! DAMN YOU PARENTS! WE WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND WHAT IS SO SPECIAL!

So my parents would disappear from the family room and leave me and my sisters to fend for ourselves for a little bit in front of the television with coloring books, games and toys. Eventually, one of us would look up and say ‘Hey, where’s Mom and Dad?’

Kid #2: ‘I think they went to their room.’

Kid #1: ‘I wanna go!’

Kid #3: ‘I wanna go, too!!’

So, off we would trot to their room, screaming ‘MOM! DAD! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! WHERE ARE YOU?’. We would try to open the door but it was locked.

‘HEY, MOM! THE DOOR IS LOCKED!’

Something lay behind that door and the three of us weren’t privy to it. Oh, that just pissed us off. Those parents were keeping secrets from us! Maybe they were spies or vampires or something. Or churning butter or building a bike or something. I mean, we could hear what may have been the bed squeaking going ‘weh-eh-weh-eh-weh-eh’. So we did what any asshole, ignorant child would do when their parents were trying to get some quality time together.

We knocked on the door. I take that back…we BANGED on the door. I mean, each of us had closed fists and all three of us would start wailing on the door screaming ‘WHAT’S GOING ON IN THERE? WHERE ARE YOU GUYS?’ and then we would run back to the family room and pretend that we didn’t do it. And when we couldn’t goad our parents to come out the first time, we would do it again. And again. BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG! ‘WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING? WHERE ARE YOU? WE WANT TO COME IN!’.

The stupid thing is that we would run back to the family room giggling and immediately pretend to be watching tv, playing with toys or coloring. We thought we were smart and funny. They would never figure out that we were the ones banging on the door.

My parents, bless their hearts, never yelled at us for pulling this stunt. They would eventually resurface and act like nothing happened but Dad would sort of look at us like we were morons. We would giggle to ourselves because we don’t know what was going on behind that closed door but, dang it, if they’re having fun without us then we were going to ruin it.

My God, we were stupid kids. But I have to admit that we had a pretty happy childhood.