WWWWWWhhhhhhiiiiir-ding-da-ding, schurrrrrrrr-SCHURRRRRRRRRR- whir-ding-ding SCHURRRRRR.
Dial-up discordance.
The sound filled my childhood room, and I waited patiently, nervously, for AOL to connect to the “high-speed” Internet. My mom had just left the house to run some motherly errands.
And you know what that meant: web-surfing shenanigans.
What would I do? Play games on disneychannel.com? Ask obnoxious questions on ask.com like “why is the sky blue?” or better yet “what is 2+2?” just to see how magical the Internet was? It was a time of exploring. It was a time of wonder. Everything at the tips of my chubby, 10-year- old fingers.
But no. I figured since my mom was picking up milk or something (you know, whatever mothers pick up), I would do something that would get my adrenaline pumping. I wanted a quick thrill. A taste of danger.
There was only one place where I can stir some trouble. A place where words collided in a fascinating rainbow of lime greens, bright purples and fluorescent blues. A place of Comic Sans and Papyrus. You know, the cool fonts.
The AOL Chatroom for Kids.
Typing in my username (which happened to be ignition005. I was inspired by the hit R. Kelly song, “Ignition Remix,” that taught me how to be a little man. I felt the joys of being a pimp through those lyrics), I was ready to go. I didn’t have time to change my font – it was now or never.
My eyes focused in on the plethora of “asl?” and “hey wut ^ evry1!!!” Children. They had no idea what was about to hit them.
Actually, I had no idea what I was going to drop on these fools. What was the most forbidden act that no one dared speak about? Sixth grade math? Nah. Worse. What made youngsters gasp? What made eyes grow wide?
The “s” word.  Calm down, now; I know you shudder at the thought.
I had walked through nature enough to know a little about the birds and the bees. And by nature, I mean eyeing magazines with promiscuous women on the front every Saturday at Books-A-Million. But I had no idea about the impact of sex. It was a foreign to me as Taco Day in the cafeteria.
On a mission, I typed “i love sex.”
Enter.
Ignition005 has been banned from this chatroom. Please contact AOL services to renew your banned connection.
What had I done?  The bold letters pointed straight at me, cursing my name. I wanted to throw up. Man, my mom was going to kill me with the milk she had just picked up. Just beat me over and over with the milk carton. I was a dead fourth grader. I would never get to learn my fifth grade teacher’s name.
Okay, just play dumb, Zack. Just tell Momma that the Internet is blocked and that she has to call to get it back up. It’s going to be alright. Man, I’m so dead.
I sat in my roller chair in sheer horror until I heard the living room door open as my mother walked in, the sound of grocery bags rustling. With big doe eyes, I quietly and innocently told her the Internet was down.
The calm before the storm. All was still in the house. No dial-up sounds. No rustling grocery bags. With calm fingers, my mom dialed AOL services. Winds began to pick up. I could feel the rain cloud over my head. I still wanted to throw up.
“Hi, yes, I’m calling about a banned Internet connection…….Oh……ignition005 said that?-”
Her dagger eyes cut to me, her jaw clenching in anger. This was it. The end of my life. I would pass on my old Furby with corroded batteries to my best friend. Zack, a young sexual deviant, may he rest in peace was what my headstone would surely say. I was flooded with shame.
“I apologize for the inconvenience, and I appreciate your help,” my mother said sweetly with a smile. Oh, what a fake smile. Well played, Momma. I knew she was raging on the inside.
Hanging up the phone, my mom said, “Go to my room. We are about to have a serious talk.” Even though her room was like a couple of feet away from mine, it felt like a death march. She closed the door, which I thought was weird because we were literally the only people in the house. Moms are weird, right?
“What in the WORLD do you know about sex?!” she yelled fiercely.
I was dumbstruck. What DID I know about sex? I knew it was a powerful word with serious consequences. But I didn’t know that it was such a big deal until I typed in those three little words.
“I don’t know… I’m really sorry, Momma. I promise I won’t ever do it again!”
“Why did you even write that?!”
“I thought it would be funny,” I said. I was desperate.
“That’s not funny, Zack! Don’t EVER say anything like that again, do you hear me? I mean it.”
I waited for my punishment with my head down. I was a bad child with a bad mouth who never deserved a trip to Chuck-E-Cheese.
“And you’re grounded from the computer until I say so.”
“Even from The Sims!?”
“No computer. Period.”
Sulking back to my room, I learned even more about the act of getting naked and wrestling: sex was no laughing matter. It was a serious thing that I never wanted to think about ever again. In just a few minutes, sex was a deadly force that destructed my time playing The Sims. Sex was evil. And apparently, sex made my mom really mad. Really mad.
So all I could do now was lay in the big pile of boredom otherwise known as my bed and yearn to feel the glow of the computer screen on my face as the screeches and caws of dial-up tones echoed loudly in my ears.