Like a fair number of late high school early-college age kids, my friends and I decided to engage in a night of hooping, hollering, and all kinds of admittedly stupid antics. I think back on both fondly and with high levels of cringe. The challenges started while we were driving home from the beach one day, and my friend, who we’ll call Gregor, declared we would be playing a game of truth and dare during the car ride home. The group consisted of me, “Gregor,” “Katie,” “Darrin,” and “Kyle.” We were almost home. Maybe it was to keep everyone awake and alert as we made the early-evening drive back home.
The first round passed in a circle of various truths. People are nervous about getting the dares going because once they get going, then they start escalating. When the escalation stops - no one knows! Gregor was driving and was routinely safe from many dares, even dares that were doable in cars. He raised the stakes almost immediately when my friend Kyle asked for a dare. Gregor dared Kyle to get completely naked while we were still sitting in the car. Kyle agreed but on the condition that the rest of us in the back joined him. Darrin agreed readily, but I refused. I was nervous and uncomfortable doing something like that at the time.
I refused the whole rest of the way home, effectively stunting the game and killing the mood. Eventually, I agreed to a penalty dare once we were situated at a house. The penalty dare, in this case, is that I had to have a “sexy picture” of myself taken. I would be distributed amongst the current group. I agreed, albeit a little reluctantly at first. I started thinking of “sexy” poses to put myself in when inspiration struck me like lightning.
Back then, I had an old Spider-Man throw pillow. A square one that would be capable of covering a fair amount of area. So I pitched my idea to the juice crew. “Can I get completely naked in a separate room but cover myself in the right places at the right angles with this Spider-Man pillow,” I asked. The combined group debated amongst themselves. They were curious to see what I had planned, so they agreed and proceeded to leave the staging area.
Thus I began the transformation. I stripped down completely nude. I grabbed my trusty Spider-Man throw pillow, and when I was done, I called my friends in to see the scene. The friend group came into the room to see me splayed on the bed. I was laying back on my elbows; my legs strategically curled around the throw pillow in front of my crotch. A blanket was also well-placed around the small of my back and hips, so more than necessary wasn’t revealed.
My friends busted a gut laughing. I’m not sure what they were picturing in their heads, but I’d like to believe I blew their expectations way out of the water. This event, of course, happened in the age of everyone having a camera in their pocket. The phones came out, and the pictures started getting taken. Amid that photo session, my cat jumped on the bed, and a whole new storm of photos had to be taken. The absurdity of the situation was just too much for anyone to handle. Soon after, I spoke the first words that came to my mind.
“Just call me Spidey-Daddy!”
A majority of the pictures taken that day would fade away or end up on phones that got destroyed, but one photo taken by my friend Kyle persists to this day. A constant reminder of my simultaneous brilliance and noteworthy cringe from my earlier years. A delightful reminder of youth's many mundane but still extraordinary adventures.
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