fistyface:

Childhood is a funny thing. It’s such an innocent period in our lives. We’re allowed to make puppets out of our butt cheeks and just have it excused as being silly. Or listen to that one ‘NSync album you asked for your birthday one year without being prosecuted as a raging homosexual. But you never grow up thinking you look like one walkie talkie transmission away from a Code Adam. And I didn’t know for the longest time and for me the ignorance was bliss. I use to love kids. I didn’t run away screaming “PLEASE DON’T SAY THAT I TOUCHED YOUR PRIVATE PARTS!” like I do now. 

There is one event in my recent history that stands out as the point where the illusion was shattered. It was just a normal day in my local Target and I was doing what I always do in Target. I was browsing the trading card section and at this point in my life I was looking for something specific. Yu-Gi-Oh cards. Yes, I had evolved past Pokemon cards of my childhood years to “the big boy trading card game” as I called it. And I hadn’t decided which of the variety of booster packs I was going to get when this little kid walked up beside me. 

He stood there for a moment before looking up and asking me, “Do you know anything about Yu-Gi-Oh?”

I nodded a “Yes.”

“Which one do you think I should get?” He said.

“Well it’s really a matter of preference but I really like this one since has a lot of dragons in it.” I said plucking one of the booster packs of the top shelf and handing it to him. 

He looked at it the booster pack for a moment then said, “Yeah, dragons are pretty cool.”

I agreed with him as I grabbed myself a booster and headed out the aisle to meet back with my grandma. And as we stood in line the little kid and his mom now behind us I guess my grandma overheard what a help I was to this kid. She grew silent as we had our stuff rung up and she paid. She continued not to say anything to me until we had our car loaded and the seat belts buckled. Then she gave me a lecture that I will never forget.

She looked over at me in the passenger seat and that’s when she said, “Michael, what was that back there?”. 

I looked up from my freshly opened Yu-Gi-Oh cards and replied with a “Huh?”.

“That kid back there. What was that?” She said.

“Oh…he just needed some help picking out some Yu-Gi-Oh cards.” I answered.

She sighed and look down, “Michael, when you look like the way you do. You shouldn’t be talking to kids his age. One of the parents may confuse you for a child molester.”

 That’s the day when I figured out that not only did my grandma think that I looked like a pedophile so did everyone else apparently. It was then that I started avoiding children like the plague. Cause face it, a fat fuck like me would just be a giant electromagnet for attracting dicks in prison. And I’m not going down because I had to offer up my advice on trading cards. Thank you grandma for looking out for me.