

Both constantly and never. I was born to teen parents, so as far back as I can remember, every other day, my Dad would constantly say “Whatever you do, don’t get her pregnant.” Even when I was far too young to understand what pregnant or sex was.
But the closest thing I got to “the talk” was when I was 17 and he randomly barges into the living, throws a pack of condoms at me, says “wrap your schlong” and then keeps walking to his bedroom.
Later that night I told him that A) I wasn’t having sex B) didn’t plan on it and C) that I wasn’t even sure what to do with a condom or how throwing one at me was helpful. He shrugged “Sorry I don’t have ace parenting skills or whatever” and that was the end of it.
I thought I learned how to have sex by watching porn, but… obviously that wasn’t true so I had to be taught everything by partners. Including extremely basic things like what semen, periods or orgasms were.
Thanks Dad…

It still feels a little odd to me that restaurants don’t ask “smoking or non?”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m delighted everything stopped smelling like ash. But it’s surreal to remember my grand parents chain smoking over pancakes at Dennys.