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Inspirational Reads

A Life Invented

June 22, 2009

I'm a fairly creative guy. I hate to blow my own horn (which is how my cousin Walter broke his neck), but I'm all about cooking shit up like bacon...just in an imaginary way. For instance, this here slice o'Blogosphere Heaven was originally just a way for me to talk about the joys and pains of writing a book (joys = finishing shit up, pains = rejection letters).

Since I deal in fiction, I make up people all the time. I make up names, genders, descriptions...you get the idea. Everything that would make an otherwise imaginary figment into an actual, breathing entity.

However, I haven't always done this shit in my literary worlds. No, no. See, I once made up a completely imaginary girlfriend.

Now, now, before you all go away calling me a "Loser" and trying to hide the word underneath a cough, let me tell you the circumstances. I'm sure you'll be far more entertained. Looking back, I know I'm far more entertained.

So, my wee little town sat on the county line, which meant that half of the county went to Huntington County schools, whereas the other half went to Wells County schools. This was very convenient for the creation of an imaginary sweetheart, because, naturally, my girlfriend had to go to a different school. Thusly, she was doomed to spend her days at Norwell Junior/Senior High. She lived on the other side of town, which, conveniently enough, also had a lot of apartments, which provided for a convenient "Oh, I don't know everyone who lives up there."

I guess that I should say that I invented this girl late in the sixth grade and carried her through to part of the seventh grade. This will become important later in the story.

I had to pick a name for her. This was easy. For some reason unknown to me even to this day, I loved the song Sarah by Starship. Couple that with the fact that Sarah was an extremely popular name for girls about my age, and I had a ready-made girlfriend name. Given the amount of people of Germanic heritage in my small town, I went for a somewhat bland German-sounding last name. Thus, was Sarah Klein born.

Of course, I had to describe her to people who would ask, you know, for all those times I would casually slip into conversation that I had a girlfriend. Despite the fact that my tastes trend toward the saucy redheads and the dark-haired beauties, Sarah was blonde. The reason for this was because there were a lot of fucking blonde girls running around town, so sweetie pie Sarah could have been anyone of those. Because my favorite color is green, I gave Sarah green eyes. I also made her somewhat tall, just because.

And thus, a life was born.

Now, I'm sure you're sitting there, delighting in my tale, but wondering why such a suave and debonair motherfucker like myself would need to go out crafting his own Teutonic beauty rather than just roping one in myself. The answer to this puzzlement is simple: I needed her for the sex.

Now, despite the fact that I was on my way to the eighth grade, that I was well on my way to developing a full and unruly set of pubes, that I had already seen a real-live pair of boobs, had already sat through the puberty tapes that they give you in the fifth grade--you know, the one where they separate the boys and girls into separate rooms--AND sat through the puberty tapes where they don't separate on the basis of gender, my parents still had not had the sex talk with me. I emboldened the sex talk because, whenever it was mentioned by my parents, it seemed to echo. You know, as in "someday, I'll give you the sex talk".

The sex talk is a story unto itself and will be told in due time.

Suffice it to say, Sarah Klein was a bit morally unstructured. She didn't start out that way. At first, she was all cute and sweet, but as things went along, she began to be more aggressive. For months, my tactics didn't work, until finally, Sarah's family got a place at The Lake. I've told you about that, what with the girls across the lane wearing their small bikinis all the time and...well, that's a story better suited for another day, too.

So, one night at The Lake, I was talking with my friends up there and talking about how I was going over to Sarah's cottage when her parents went out for their late night boat cruise. We were going to be doing some nasty stuff, Sarah and I, over at her imaginary lake cottage. Oh, the fun we'd have. Dusk began to settle over us, and so my friends and I went our separate ways. I went over to my grandfather's cottage, my cousin--whom, for anonymity's sake, will heretofore be known as "Napoleon"--went to his cottage where my mom and my aunt were pulling a late night sit on the front porch and bitch session, and my friend Tammy went to her cottage.

Apparently, Napoleon went to my mom and aunt and recounted, in gruesome detail, all of the nasty things Sarah and I were planning on doing that night in her cottage. Napoleon had a bad habit of flushing all of the information in his brain out through his mouth in what I like to call "oral diarrhea." Now, bear in mind, I still haven't had the sex talk. About five minutes after we all went our separate ways, here comes Napoleon into my grandfather's cottage, looking for me. I got dragged down to my cousin's cottage and I got read the fucking riot act. You'd think that, since I hadn't had the sex talk yet, there would be no fear of me becoming intimate with my imaginary girlfriend. Apparently, this was not the case.

As I stood there, much like Christ before the Sanhedrin, whilst my mother called poor Sarah a whore over and over again.

Do you like how I just set myself up to be a Messianic figure? Hey, it's my blog, I can do what I want.

My mother asked me why I was afraid to bring Sarah around--because she was a whore? She asked me why I was ashamed to be seen with her--because she was such a whore? She asked me if my father knew that the girl I was dating...was a whore? I think she might have peppered "slut" in there a few times. The memory, despite its mirthful twist, is a little hazy.

The most amusing part was that my mother then went on to tell me about how she had seen Sarah sneaking around, hiding behind trees, walking up and down the lanes between cottages, avoiding my mother's steely gaze. This part really amused me. Somehow, this figment of my imagination, cooked up primarily so that I could finally get past this great hurdle in my life known as the sex talk had not only become real, but apparently had suddenly appeared arrayed in purple and scarlet, and drinking from a golden cup full of her abominations and the filthiness of her fornication.

And, despite the fact that I created her, that I owned the copyright on her character, that I had somehow missed the fact that she had become quite corporeal and real, I wasn't getting any. I was pretty fucking cheesed at this.

Eventually, I was grounded for my efforts. I think the time was two weeks. Oh, and as further punishment, I had to break it off with Sarah. Which was too bad because, really, I'm going to guess that she grew up and got totally hot. Or addicted to meth, one of the two.

Oh, and I didn't have the sex talk for another seven months.

17 comments:

red said...

So inspired am I by your story, I think I'll invent a boyfriend right now. It's actually pretty easy at this age, what with the LDRs and interwebs.

Thank you!

Sass said...

I invented a boyfriend, once. His name was Jason, and he gave me my first beer.

And he was going to give me his class ring, but his was SOOOO expensive that his mom wouldn't let him give it to a girlfriend. Because he was, of course, loaded.

Wow.

corticoWhat said...

I was once the imaginary boyfriend. Her parents called my parents and accused me of all kinds of things. She, apparently, had a better imagination than I did a life.

Cora said...

*sigh*

Yes. I made up a boyfriend in 7th grade. His name was Andrew. Named after Andrew Ridgeley in Wham. Shut up.

Scope said...

See, I would have TOTALLY busted my Mom there on the spot. I would have started laughing at her rants, and when she got all angry, I would have told her I was playing a practicle joke on "Nappy".

And later in life, I would have sued for the rights to "Weird Science."

Eric said...

Dude, I totally went out with your imaginary girlfriend when I was in jr. high school. She said hi.

Chemgeek said...

I was someone's imaginary boyfriend once.

Gwen said...

I've always been so embarrassed about my imaginary boyfriend. Until now. I'm truly surprised at how many of us did this. It's so freeing to know.

I remember less about him than I remember my cousin absolutely ridiculing me publicly for it. I had to stick to my story because she was wailing on me so bad in front of everyone. I eventually wrote her a note on toilet paper telling her she was an awful person who didn't even deserve real paper.

Now I kinda wish I remembered more about him and almost nothing about her.

Soda and Candy said...

Hahahahaha, this goes down in history as one of your best posts ever.

:)

Chaka said...

At least you had the courage to let her live in the same town as you. Most guys make up a Canadian girl friend because she will be easier to hide.

Lisa-tastrophies said...

Dude, YOU went out with SARAH??? I think all the guys in my Jr High knew Sarah. She was pretty hot at my school as well. Although I never saw her, I heard she had pretty wicked skills and a great rack.

Sad part: I'm 40 and having to invent an imaginary boyfriend to keep 7th grade boys from TELLING me about THEIR love lives. Which BTW, are more active than mine is :-(

words...words...words... said...

I had an imaginary girlfriend once, and even she stopped coming around because I was too nerdy. That's a blow, let me tell you.

And nice Clerks reference :)

gullybogan said...

There used to be (and maybe there still is) this online dealio where you signup and pay some bucks and you get an imaginary girlfriend who writes you raunchy emails and sets up a flirty Flickr account full of saucy pics of herself for you to look at.

I was this close [||] to applying for a job writing copy for them.

And i'm not even a girl!

I'm actually a dog. A golden retriever, to be precise. Wroof.

Pearl said...

You are truly as silly as I am.
:-)

While I have not had an imaginary boyfriend, I have had multiple imaginary conversations -- or WERE they?! -- with Abraham Lincoln, Elvis, and my special imaginary friend Dave Pirner, singer of Soul Asylum (before they got big but were still huge in Minneapolis).

I should call him... Ring! Ring! Shoot! I gotta go!

Pearl

otherworldlyone said...

Classic.

Fancy Schmancy said...

I not only had the imaginary boyfriend in the 7th grade, I had an imaginary very loud wet dream about him at a slumber party. It's nice to finally know I'm not the only loser out there.

Nej said...

I had a boyfriend in 7th grade...but tried to pretend as though I didn't.

I was too darned nice and couldn't tell him that he drove me nuts. Absolutely bonkers!!!!

It was 7th grade, we never really saw each other...except to occasionally pass in the halls at school.

Does that count? :-)