Hickies and Leaves

It was a typical teenage Saturday night in suburbia, not much going on. As a group, we decided to make a pilgrimage to a friend’s cabin, about 20 minutes outside of the city. An average night at the cabin consisted of stolen alcohol from our parents’ liquor cabinet, backpacks of full of beer bottles stuffed inside socks (to muffle that pesky clanking sound from unsuspecting adults), and a tent in the backyard, so we could sneak out after midnight. This plan usually yielded a pretty fun evening.

It was a usual night; teenagers drinking in the woods and roaming around the golf course. It was a particularly successful night for me, who hit it off with a nice young man (who looked a little too much like a young David Letterman for my friends’ liking, but I didn’t care). Nonetheless, I had a good time making out with him in the woods, horny and drunk, like any teenage girl would.

The kicker was that I was due to report for a babysitting gig back in town, at 7 am the next morning. I painfully stumbled out of the tent at 6am, staggered onto my bike and proceeded to do a 20 km hung-over bike ride of shame in last night’s clothes. When my employers answered the door the first thing they asked was, "Were you at a party last night?"

"Yeah, that's weird. Why do you ask?"

"Oh no reason...." And off they went. I quickly went to "freshen up" in the bathroom, only to find bright purplish-red hickies all over my neck and leaves sticking out of my hair in every direction, like I was some form of peacock road kill. Fucking classy!

Oh, and I never got called to babysit for that family ever again.