A Period Of Genius

[Originally posted on April 19, 2019 — old blog]

Around 1991, my friends Nick and Dan K. had their next door neighbor ask their mother Kathy if one of her boys wanted to cat-sit while they were out of town for a week. Kathy knew Dan was the right man for the job. I’m pretty sure she figured it was one of those teaching moments where he’d learn some new wholesome responsibilities. Well, cut to the neighbors being on vacation, and Mr. & Mrs. K. are off at work one day, and we all knew Dan had access to the neighbor’s house for a full week. Now boys being boys, someone had the bright idea to bring a VCR porno tape to the neighbor’s empty house and watch it. Where did that porno come from, you ask? My guess was our local video store, which was somehow ok with me renting an adult film at 15 years old. Anyhow, the characters in this story that I know for sure were Dan and Nick, my brother Nick, Andrew, John and myself. There may have been others, but I can’t say for sure. If you’re one of them reading this, chime in under the comments below. So fast forward to all of us boys trekking next door with rented tape in hand. We congregate in the living room, pulled up some sofa and powered on the TV and VCR. You remember? You had to tune to the appropriate channel, insert the tape and press play. The black and white lines squiggle across the screen to automatically track the video perfectly. Then the opening title rolls, and away we go! Emmanuelle! What a classic. There it was. Uninterruptible flesh slapping flesh. Moans and groans at full volume and six tight pants at full staff. But that’s about all it was. We didn’t yet understand how to finish those feelings, and the excitement soon subsided. But our curiosity was still a blazin’.

I guess we felt like snooping that day, because being in a complete stranger’s empty house was the perfect case to do something like that. Our adrenaline still pumping, we decided to see what was around the house. We headed down the basement and found nothing but younger kids toys. Then we all shot back upstairs to the second floor. There was nothing fun in the bathroom. Then in a little boy’s room and a little girl’s room, both were EXTRA BORING riddled with toys. Then there was the parents room. The door was shut. “Jiggle the handle!” “IT’S LOCKED!” “What?” “Why?” Well, that’s stinks. We figured the party over. Some guys started heading back downstairs to the living room, but for whatever reason, I noticed a closet in the hallway, caddy-corner to the locked bedroom. I opened the narrow closet door and looked around inside. Towels, toothpaste and other toiletries, nothing looked out of the ordinary. But as I was closing the closet door to head back downstairs, I noticed a wire rack mounted to the inside of the door. And on that rack, among other things, was an empty tampon box. And for reasons still unknown to me until this day, I decided to look deep into that box and spotted a lonely key. I immediately did the math. Locked door plus weird key…it had to be. “A Period Of Genius” had just occurred. I immediately yelled, “GUYS! I FOUND SOMETHING!” I grabbed the key, and turned to the locked door. Everyone was already back to the top of the steps and waiting, asking inquisitive questions like “WHY THE FUCK WERE YOU LOOKING IN AN EMPTY TAMPON BOX?”, and my reply is still “I DON’T KNOW!” But I think Snoop Dog would be impressed with my snooping skills. PS, he wasn’t even a G-thang yet at this point in time.

Bingo! We’re in. And within a millisecond, the sheer look of horror that came upon 6 innocent boys’ faces will never be forgotten. As if the Goonies just found the ship, treasure and gold. But only this wasn’t gold. This was a room of sex-capades. A swing hanging from the ceiling next to the bed, which had straps on all four bed posts. A folding table with home made porno tapes stacked high. Whatever you just imagined as high, go higher. Stacks! There was a dresser with cameras and more stacks of Polaroid pictures stacked even higher than the tapes. The pictures we were able to see were of Mr. & Mrs. Next Door Neighbors wearing leather with whips and masks. Toys. Adult toys everywhere. Big, small, electric and in every color imaginable and half-empty and full bottles of lube to go along with them. We couldn’t believe our virgin eyes. Emmanuelle was G rated compared to what we just discovered. And it immediately dawned on us that this was some sort of trap or a set up. And without saying a word, we all backed out of that room one by one leaving everything we saw in its place. I pulled the door behind me, turned the key to lock it and dropped that key back into the empty tampon box in the closet and ran.

We all met back in the living, freaking out at what we just witnessed. It was never said out loud, but we made a non-verbal pact right then and there to never speak of this to anyone. We quickly gained our composure and headed back home next door. When we got back, Dan and Nick’s parents were home, but we kept our cool long enough and everyone headed home for dinner.

So tick tock, time goes by and the following Saturday rolls around. We’ve pretty much forgotten enough about the events that unfolded earlier in the week since no one got in trouble. We were all hanging out playing video games once again at Dan and Nick’s, being loud and obnoxious as usual, when there was a knock on the front door, which was rarely ever used. Nick pops up and answers the door, and we hear a female voice says to him, “Hi, is your mom home?” Nick runs past all of us while mouthing “It’s the neighbor!” to the kitchen to get his mother. Kathy goes to the door, and steps outside. We all tried to gather as close as we could to the door to hear what the ladies might be talking about. But we can’t really make it out. When we sense the conversation is over we all darted back to our seats around the TV. Kathy, comes back inside, closes the door and walks heavy-footed back to the kitchen. “DANIEL ROBERT K! KITCHEN! NOW!” Our faces lit-up with panic. His middle name was used so we knew it was serious! We all mouthed simultaneously to each other…”We’re FUCKED!” We couldn’t even lower the TV volume either or Kathy would know we were eavesdropping. We had to wait there…and wait…and wait. We could hear Dan pleading his case, but not too clearly. But as Dan and Kathy appear in view, Kathy now holding that Emmanuelle VCR tape and pointing it at Dan as she yelled at him. We all realized right then and there, WE FORGOT TO TAKE THE VCR TAPE THAT WE BROUGHT OVER TO WATCH! How stupid were we!?

We all looked at each other, and gave each other a slight nod, as to say in unison, “we must break the pact and tell her or Dan’s in hot shit for a long time”. So I piped up and said, “No, Mr. K. Wait! Here’s what really happened.” And I told her the God’s honest truth, and the other guys chimed in to validated my story and we told her everything.

Within minutes she was hysterical laughing. Agreeing at times, as if she already knew there was something about these neighbors, as they were the only people in the whole town that had about 10–16 phone lines installed, going to their house for either sex-lines or blazing fast Internet reasons in 1991. Saucy!

Kathy, pretty much let Dan off the hook after we all dished the goods. And if I can remember correctly, she didn’t even call any of our parents about this one. Now that I’m older, I completely understand. How do you even begin that conversation with another parent after knowing what you now know. She did the right thing and she didn’t even call the video store to complain about renting garbage to little kids.

So kids, in the end, the moral of the story is, that’s why you leave a lonely key at the bottom of an empty tampon box lie.