Brandon Fortner

ROUGH DRAFT

“As I said earlier this evening; all good things must come to an end, but Brandon Fortner never comes to an end,” I tipped the cup upside down and let all of the cider fall dramatically to the ground, cheers.  Those were the last words I said during our, “friends and family,” picnic on the last day of Teen Council.  I had successfully become the sex knowledge master that I had been striving to be for years.  College was ahead of me and I had one last fun high school summer with my friends.  This part is the end though, and the full story starts with an interview and some crazy-fun kids who made me extremely nervous.

I was covering my booty, pretending to be the pokemon Charmander hiding its tail from the rain.  The current members of Teen Council looked at me, judging my performance and laughing.  Teen Council is a group of high school students that work for Planned Parenthood and go around schools within their community to teach comprehensive sexual education to their peers.  The Charmander charade was part of the interview process.  Teen Council was a club that I believed to be the most cool, ultimate, badass, liberal sex club ever.  This highly exclusive club had been an interest for me ever since they barged into my physical education class and showed everyone pictures of vaginas.  Not just any old healthy vagina either, vaginas that were affected by venereal diseases.  From the moment I saw the first afflicted vagina I knew that Teen Council needed me to be the herald of reproductive care.  I fantasized about being in their place, walking through the halls throwing condoms in everyone’s faces.  I was very dramatic back then.  Not to mention the members who were teaching the class totally ripped apart the sexual education that our textbooks were trying to teach us. Instead of saying, “Don’t have sex,” we were told by the Teen Council members, “Abstinence is a great way to prevent pregnancy, STDs and STIs but it isn’t what works best for everyone here are some other ways to prevent this from happening to you.”

At the age of fourteen the only thing running through your mind is sex, appearance, music, fun, drugs, and popularity.  This may not apply to everyone, but I thought at the time that it was fairly universal.  My life needed to be affected by as many things as possible; I was desperate for change and hungry for distinction.  That one class in a sense changed my life, without it I wouldn’t have become a member of Teen Council, and then decided to go to college and ultimately become a teacher.  To be completely honest I didn’t do much teaching while I was in Teen Council, it appeared   scary and intimidating.  In retrospect I wish that I would have tried to take advantage of this opportunity because I was in a role that really went against what the dominant narrative wanted adolescents to understand.  This was what was so appealing to me about going into teaching, I had the opportunity to change peoples lives, which sounded like a worthy enough career choice.

There was a little welcoming meeting that we were told to bring our parents to so we could be introduced to the new facilitator.  Mother and I hopped into whatever sedan she was driving at the time and motored on over to the Shelton Planned Parenthood.  I opened the completely blacked out door and entered the hallowed lobby that would soon become the den of all reproductive care and knowledge that I would acquire.  For the real Teen Council meetings we entered through a less grand side door of the building.  My mother and I sat in our chairs and she attempted to talk to me but I mildly ignored her, I hated my mother at the time and thought that she was a huge bitch, but in reality my mother is a bad bitch (all respect meant).  It came time for everyone to, “get to know each other,” we each shared where we were from and then we also had to say something that we liked about the person who came with us.  I cant quite remember what my mother said, I’m sure it was something very similar to what the other mothers had said about their children.  I remember specifically saying in a very bored and monotone voice, “My mother loves all of her children but sometimes…” my mother had cut me off and said, “Sometimes I can love them too much.”  We looked like such idiots, I love my mom.