Of 8 Year-Old Girls, Kissing, and The Reproductive System

I’ve made a discovery as to why life became a tad bit boring after High School…Rosanna Buencamino (Goes by the incongruous sweet name of Rose but was also notoriously known in a more suitable name of Sk8) fled the country shortly after graduating. I haven’t spoken to her for the longest time and the image of her in my brain is still that of the tall, gawky, nerdy, bullying, intimidating, outspoken, loud, four-eyed girl whose eccentricity is so way off the charts that when launched from the ground, it circled the earth and the moon ten times before it finally reached its destination. Ah the days of yore, when Rose would pick on Jeya, swoon over Matt Salerno, write her outrageous poems, strut a little too manly, pluck her eyebrows a little to thinly, and fixate on my budding chest. Rose is a freak train speeding dangerously down the tracks, and to be her friend is to be in the front seat with no harness or safety device to cling on to for dear life except for her word that it’s going to be "freaking fun". Coolness.

I have a very fond memory of Rose wherein she polluted my brain with something that never really bothered me before that incident. I met her when we were in the third grade. Sometimes I still wonder how the hell did I get mixed up with the likes of Rose. I can’t recall how or why I was crazy enough to have even given her an inaudible grunt that was mistaken for a "Hi, I want to be your friend". But I thank the gods in Olympus for inspiring that moment. You have to have at least one crazy friend. She's one of them. And then of course I collected more, more, more!

My earliest memory of her was when we were eight years old. In the school that I went to, we had this box contraption called the “SRA”. Hmm, never really knew what that meant. We had a Reading class and the teacher’s job was to have 40 or so students sit still, read from that box, answer questions, and then read some more…solitary...for an hour. To me, that was one hour to indulge in idleness. I read some. And then I talk. And then I sleep. And then I pretend to read furiously at the last five minutes of the period. Little did I know that they record the stuff that you read, and turns out, my numbers turned out to be very dismal. This resulted in English Remedial Classes that I had to attend after my normal schedule. But I only attended one meeting…because of Rose. Rose somehow convinced me to skip the whole thing altogether and just lounge around in the library to vandalize the underside of our uniforms with colored glue. Well, it WAS better than remedial classes. So it was me and Rose, and the Albino kid who was always in the library.

So there was this one day wherein we talked about the act of kissing. I can’t remember why but I’m pretty sure it was because of that Blue Lagoon movie with Brooke Shields and some obscure actor whose name I never bothered to remember. We were hanging out on the second story of the playhouse that was decked with pillows left and right that were most probably drenched with the sweat and drool of other kids. If you ever studied at SSC, did you even wonder at one point if they, at least twice a year, washed those pillows? All I can remember is the smell of mothballs.

The following conversation is most definitely not verbatim, but pretty close. Keep in mind that Rose is 8 years old albeit imagining her as an innocent child is close to impossible.

Rose : Kissing is not as enjoyable as it seems.
Me : Really. It looks okay. Yuck. But the people on TV seem to like it.
Rose : Are you kidding me? Don’t you watch it closely? Don’t you wonder why the girl cries or moans while kissing?
Me : Not Really. Because they enjoy it?
Rose : *exasperated sigh* You have much to learn Ms. *******, much to learn indeed. Do you really want to know what happens?
Me : *curious, threatened, and scared* Yes?
Rose : When people kiss, this is what the guy does. A part of him enters the girl’s body….

DUN DUN DUN

Me : Eh?
Rose : Yes that’s right.

SILENCE

Rose: He sticks a finger up your ass.

CUE THEME FROM THE TWILIGHT ZONE

Me : *flabbergasted, mouth agape*

Rose : And that’s how babies are conceived.

...

Seriously, I bought that for a year. I was a sucker. Thanks a lot Rose.

EPILOGUE
I advanced to the fourth grade, met the terror that is Ms. Santos, and was introduced to the Reproductive System and how it’s all supposed to happen. And half the time, I’m still thinking, this might just be some big conspiracy that Rose had set up because it still sounded ridiculous.