Craig Daily Press

Christina M. Currie

Christina M. Currie's Touch of Spice column appears Fridays in the Craig Daily Press. E-mail her at director@craig-chamber.com

Who doesn’t remember their first kiss? That awkwardness and insecurity. The butterflies in your stomach.

Chip McIntyre. He was pretty cute. I remember wondering why his parents didn’t name his younger brother Dale.

Anyway, I didn’t have any romantic notions surrounding Chip, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t have any that involved me. I’d like to think that brief meeting of the lips was curiosity or even a sign of affection, but mostly we just did it because we were dared to.

The kissing part was pretty easy, but I don’t think we made eye contact for two days afterward. I remember thinking that it was a shame to put a wrinkle in a darn good friendship for something that sounded a lot more interesting than it really was.

I think I was probably 10 or 11 years old.

Evidently, I held out.

My daughter Katie, at 7 years old, already can boast that she had her first kiss and escaped cootie free.

I’m not sure what to think about that. Seems young to me, but it’s a tale of curiosity, innocence and, well … revulsion.

“Mom. Joe* kissed me. Really. On the lips.”

Evidently, they hid in the bushes.

That was my introduction to a conversation that would last the whole evening.

I was cool.

“Ewwww, gross! Why’d you do that?” I asked.

“He kept chasing me and chasing me,” Katie said. “He just thinks I’m hot. Did you know that?”

I’m still being amused by the direction we’re going.

“Still. Why’d you kiss him?” I asked again.

“I wanted him to be happy.”

Ouch.

I wasn’t happy at all with that answer.

We had to have the, that’s-nice-of-you-but-you’re-in-charge-of-you talk.

“Did you like it?” This was the really important question.

“Nuh uh! I wiped it off. I really did,” Katie said, mimicking the gesture. “I said, ‘Oh my goodness, that was weird.”

“What did he do?”

“He said, ‘I’m not going to do that again!’”

I was both relieved and indignant.

What does he mean, he’s not going to do that again. I mean, he’d better not do that again, but what’s wrong with my daughter?

I know, I make absolutely no sense.

Six-year-old Nikki chose that time to interject.

“How do girls find their own boyfriend?”

Oh my. This was just getting worse and worse.

I explained that when girls got much, much, much older than Nikki and Katie were, and they found a boy whom they liked, they ask him to be their boyfriend.

“What if they say ‘no’?” Nikki asked.

If they said no, I’d die a little inside and then hunt them down. Don’t you hurt my baby.

Katie was much more pragmatic than I wanted to be.

“They shouldn’t say ‘no,’ they should say ‘no, thank you.’”

I said that there are a lot of reasons a boy might say no. They don’t value their life. They’re mentally slow. They have absolutely no taste.

What I actually said was, “They might not think they’re old enough for a girlfriend. They might not want a girlfriend. They might want to focus on their schoolwork.

“Basically,” I said to both girls, “you’re too young to be thinking about any of this. You shouldn’t have a boyfriend for a long, long, long time.”

I was feeling pretty good about this conversation. We packed a lot of good information in.

“But I want to have a baby,” Nikki said.

My good feelings flew right out the window.

So, I launched into THAT conversation.

Really, that was about the most exhausting four-mile car ride I’ve ever had.

That night, Katie and I practiced saying no.

I begged, I pleaded, I tried guilt and I couldn’t talk her into giving me a kiss.

I think we’re on the right track.

For now.

* Name has been changed to protect the innocent.