Porn & Scissors

A Story from my Childhood

I recently reconnected with a long-ago friend by email, and he informed me that I was the first person to show him a Playboy magazine. Here was my response:

Dear J,

I’m wondering if I showed you one of my Dad’s magazines, or if it came from, um, the linen closet in the basement bathroom of your own house. Now that I think of it, it was probably my Uncle Mick’s—he had numerous subscriptions and he’s a hoarder. My sister and I found a copious stack of wild porn in Grandma’s Brooklyn house, and it was more likely his collection than hers.

I remember laying out all of the centerfolds in the living room and picking our favorites. The lady in the bathtub won, not because she was the sexiest but because she was Miss August, when my sister and I have our birthdays.

When we left, I specifically remember putting a curated stack of them in my backpack — the ones with all the best “stories.” I didn’t think to put them in my suitcase. Sure enough, my bag triggered the x-ray alarm at airport security and a burly guard started taking everything out IN FRONT OF EVERYBODY IN THE WHOLE WORLD. First my journal, then my teddy bear, and then he had his grip on the magazines, but he didn’t quite… pull them… out. Instead, he looked up, probably expecting to see some pimply teenager or middle-aged Dad, and instead he found me, a ten-year-old quaking in the yellow sweater his grandmother made, looking like a wedge of cable-knit guilt.

“Why do you have so many scissors?” he asked.

“Huh?”

Then he reached deeper into the backpack, bypassing the smut, and he pulled out six pairs of scissors.

It was a very interesting question. Why did I have so many pairs of scissors? I mean, why did I even have ONE pair of scissors on my cross country trip from Denver to New York to Rhode Island to visit my grandparents? What was I, some sort of scissor-collector? Or a scissor-psycho? And once again, why didn’t I put those in my suitcase?

My inner-nerd bleated: “My sister and I are making collages for school and I brought scissors for me and her, and a backup. She had jet lag and wanted to start when I was sleeping, so Grandma gave her some scissors, and then my other Grandma gave me new…