i had this girlfriend in college and she wouldn’t have sex with me. one night we were studying for our exams, and i said, ok, i gotta go see my friends band. but my frigid girlfriend didn’t want me to leave, and goes, if you stay and study with me you can do whatever you want to me later. i decided to blow off seeing my friend’s band immediately, but after a moment’s reflection realized that i needed condoms before the convenience store across the street closed at 11. my girlfriend rolled her eyes. her roommate’s boyfriend worked there, and she told me that i better not buy the condoms off of him. alright, i told her, if he is working tonight i won’t buy condoms to spare you the embarrassment of people knowing you have sex with me.

so i step out into the soft night air of the early spring. it was 10:57pm. i looked across the broad expanse of central ave to quickee mart where he may or may not have been working. my fate hung in the balance. then i thought about the other nearest convenience store that was half a mile away. i could definitely get to quickee mart on time, but what if he was there? i decided to summon what little was left of my high school track star past and race to the convenience store over on chestnut hill ave. i made it in 1:59.9, a pretty good half mile for wearing chucks and cords.

but my girlfriend wasn’t impressed with my time. she had somehow gotten a headache when i returned. the condoms were tossed unused into her dresser drawer. a few weeks later her friends found the condoms while rooting through her clothes in search of something to wear to a costume party. the fact that we didn’t have sex was something this girlfriend of mine brought up with her friends every so often as a way of showing everybody how unslutty she was, even though she was very open with fact that she had sex aplenty with her last boyfriend. when her roommates asked her what the condoms were doing there, she said, ‘o, my last boyfriend must have left them there.’ i felt pretty shitty. years later i learned that she had strangled a cat to death when she was a kid.