2 Girls 1 Cup
A while back I wrote a story about my first computer, and at the end of that story I briefly talked (i.e., mentioned in passing) about that one time my mother and I watched porn together—on accident. Since writing that little blurb the memory of that awful day has haunted my waking hours and now that sufficient time has gone by, I believe the time is good and ripe to explain the before, during, and after of that horribly awkward and embarrassing moment.
Ok, here we go….
I was a gentle and naïve child before this unfortunate event occurred. Our computer was brand new and after getting over the excitement of owning something so fancy and cool, I remember innocently going on a wild internet search to find an email provider (AOL, our dial-up internet provider, did not have the username I wanted available). Everyone at school who owned a computer had one yours truly was not going to be the exception.
After clicking and clacking my way through Google, I finally came across an article that listed all of the “hottest” free email providers. After clicking through a few websites and reading though the terms and conditions (and not understanding a damn thing because none of it made sense) of a bunch of them, I somehow managed to successfully make a Yahoo! email to share with my friends. I spent about an hour clicking and exploring every nook and cranny of that inbox, customizing the colors, the email signature, and tentatively adding contact information for all of the friends I knew had emails.
When my mother told me it was time to go to bed, I remember asking for a few extra minutes to write down my new email address. I tore several pieces of paper from an old notebook and after making tiny strips with my email address on it I went to bed.
The next couple of days were spent swapping email addresses with my classmates and friends. We always tried to be discrete to avoid getting in trouble, but a few kids got caught (including yours truly) here and there. Out of everyone who got busted I particularly remember a boy in my class getting into huge trouble because his email address had an “inappropriate” word in it. This kid had been trying to pass a note to a friend of mine and when the teacher caught him and read his email address, she grabbed him by the hand and escorted him out the classroom. He was a pretty naughty kid, so after cussing the teacher out and telling her a bunch of stuff I cannot repeat here, he went to the principal’s office and then home. The teacher warned everyone in class to stop sharing email addresses and after confiscating any and all papers she found, the day went on as normal.
That same day after getting home from school I got a mysterious email from a classmate who didn’t want to give me his name. After replying to it and threatening to block them (feel free to laugh, I honestly don’t know why I felt like this was such a power move at the time) I was eventually able to figure out that it belonged to Teddy (not his real name). Teddy had gotten my email address from one of my friends and had decided to hit me up in order to send me “something cool”. After asking him what it was, he said he would seed it soon, but not that day, as it was getting late, and he had to go to bed early.
A few days passed (in which nothing fun or eventful that I can recall happened) and then one day out of the blue Teddy sent me a link to a mysterious website. Thinking it was that exorcist game where the girl’s face pops up if you go outside the lines, I prepared myself to not feel scared and then I clicked on it. My mother happened to be sitting next to me (remember that at this time the computer was in our dining room table) and then….well you know what happened. The link opened and the most horrifying sounds escaped the girl’s lips.
[Interlude: I am not gonna go into a lot of detail because it’s not relevant to the story (my reaction is). Additionally, I don’t remember much of the video itself except THAT part, that it is notoriously famous for. If you are interested in knowing what I’m talking about search 2 GIRLS 1 CUP on Wikipedia. The wiki will tell you everything you need to know.]
My mother and I, taken by surprise by what was rapidly unfolding in front of us, stared at the screen in disbelief, disgust and shock. I think we watched about 20 seconds of the video before my mother’s soul returned to her body and she turned the monitor off. Now back in the day (and I suppose even now, although it is much less common) you could make it so that the person would have to frustratingly click though a million and one pop-ups OR make it so that you could not exit the page you were on a browser. And that’s what happened in this case. The website would not quit and once the video ended it replayed again and again and again. My mother tried unplugging the speakers and that managed to take care of the auditory problem, but we still had to face what was playing on the screen. My mother spent the next couple of minutes trying to get rid of the page with no success, and eventually she managed to turn the computer off by pressing the tower button. When she turned it back on, however, the website was STILL up and after shaking her head in defeat she asked me to come over.
So, there I was, a pure and innocent child no more, sitting awkwardly next to my mother; trying my best not to listen or look at the disgusting scene unfolding (once again) in front of me. After clicking through a bunch of stupid pop-up windows and several (even nastier) ads I eventually managed to exit out of the damn website/video. My mother immediately ordered me to close the website and the rest of the day was spent doing everything except going on the computer.
Teddy was not at school the next day (you can guess who Teddy was) and after he came back to school, I reported him to my teacher for sending me that video. Since he had sent it outside of school hours there was nothing my teacher or the school could do, but they did agree to talk to his parents on my mother’s behalf to let them know what had happened. Teddy came to school the next day super upset and as soon as he saw me, he tried to blame him getting grounded on me (the damn nerve!).
My mother talked to the school as well and (I think) she may have gotten in touch with Teddy’s parents too. The entire ordeal was incredibly scarring to both of us and for a while my mother was incredibly paranoid whenever I used the computer. She would constantly remind me to not click on ANYTHING my friends sent me and to be careful about the websites I went to or clicked on. After a while we both forgot about the incident, but ever since then I’ve been really cautious when giving out my email address. I am not to receive another boob-filled, poop explicit video anytime soon.
Godspeed.
C. W.