Aghast in a "Flop" House

Trey Smith

I've been thinking a bit more about the uproar in Michigan state politics over the "audacity" of a female representative to say the word, vagina, in some of her remarks. Several conservatives have stated that the use of such a word is offensive times ten. Since these boys appear to embarrass easily, it left me to wonder if they would have dropped dead of an instant heart attack had they accompanied my family to a dinner we attended many, many years ago.

I believe that I was 13 at the time. We had been invited to supper by the parents of my younger brother's three main playmates. To protect this family's identity -- I'm not sure why -- let's call them the Johnson family.

"Paul" Johnson was the father and husband. He was an odd guy who often told us kids that he worked as a private eye. I didn't believe him because he simply didn't seem smart enough to be able to spy on people successfully. I could be wrong. If so, then my bet is that he was the most inept private investigator on the face of the planet.

His wife, "Shirley," was another piece of work altogether. In her early 30s at the time, she dressed like a hooker! (Who knows! Maybe she was!) She always seemed to be wearing a low-cut blouse or dress that was a size or two too small. She was amply endowed and her two breasts looked as if they might flop out of her brassiere at any given moment.

It should go without saying that my same age compatriots and I -- adolescents oozing with newly firing hormones -- were quite enamored with Shirley. Why spend time ogling at girlie magazines when all you needed to do was drop by the Johnson household? To make the whole situation even more tantalizing, Shirley certainly was not above wooing us!

With this as the backdrop, our family of four walked down the block one summer evening to share a fried chicken dinner with the Johnson family. Shirley, as I had hoped, was dressed as she always was. I found it difficult to keep from staring at her.

We engaged in plenty of conversation and ate heartily. At some point, Shirley noticed that young Trey had finished the two pieces of chicken on his plate (this was a few years before I gathered up the courage to reject meat as part of my diet). Knowing that Trey would only eat white meat, Shirley sidled up to me with plate in hand, bent over and said in her beautiful southern drawl, "Honey, would you like one of these breasts?"

Mind you, the way she had bent over meant that her own breasts, not the chicken breasts, were mere inches from my face. As noted above, they looked like they might flop out any second and hit me in the nose or on the lips. At some point, they brushed against my arm as she batted her baby blues at me.

Hard as it is for most of my friends or family to believe, I was speechless. I both was turned on and mortified simultaneously. I tried to answer her, but the words kept getting caught in my throat. After what seemed an eternity, Shirley voluntarily placed a breast -- a CHICKEN breast -- on my plate and returned to her seat.

No one else around the table seemed to notice our exchange. The overall conversations didn't skip a beat. It should surprise no one that I had great difficulty finishing my meal and rather quickly excused myself. As I prepared to exist the front door, Shirley got up and came over to where I was. "Thanks for coming, honey," she purred and then she winked at me.

I went home. I went upstairs to my room and just sat there for the longest time. I was filled with a titillating feeling mixed with abject horror. I didn't know what to make of my evening.

To this day, I still don't. At least now, it makes me smile and chuckle.