I have a ladyfriend. This ladyfriend is a lovely young black woman of twenty two years of age. Recently she came to me, in great distress, to tell of the pain and woe she was suffering unlike anything she had ever felt before. Yes ladies and gents, my ladyfriend had suffered her first sunburn. Her naturally dark skin and dutiful use of sunscreen had protected her lo these long years, but finally she had experienced what we crackers had been using as an excuse to five-star our siblings in the middle of the back every year at the beach for years. It was simultaneously pitiful and adorable to listen to myriad ways she found to express, "this really hurts!" as well as the tone she took when describing the unique suffering that was a sunburn, as if my Irish ass had no experience with the matter (It even hurts to shower! For serious!). Poor kid, if she sunbathed naked I would have spanked her just for the fun of it. Focus: When have you, or someone you know, been really late to the party? Learn to ride a bike at 28? Lose your virginity at 44?
I didn't break a bone until my first semester of law school, when I broke my pinky catching a football warming up for the first game of flag football of the season. And then I aggravated the injury about an hour blocking a pass. It was a pretty minor break though, more a fracture than a full on break. Didn't bother seeing a doctor and it healed up pretty well on its own. I guess maybe I'm still late to that party. Also, I was 23 the first time I ever got a real sunburn.
I tried to learn to skate a few times as a kid. Never got it. I gave up after I tried ice skating, and managed to fall and split my jeans open from crotch to knee with my own skate. I was 24 or 25 when we got a flyer in the mail about ice skating lessons. My wife and I were planning a trip to visit her relatives in Canada at Christmas and I'd seen in the tourism shit, one of the places we were going had a frozen river that you could skate down and snack vendors with delicious pastry snacks. So I wanted to learn to skate. I called up the place and they assured me that it was not a kids only thing. There were lots of adults, in fact more adults than kids most of the time. But, I'd have to wear a helmet for Insurance and Liability shit. I have an enormeous head. Size 'L' hats rarely fit me. I either need stretch fit hats, or I just go without. But I needed a helmet - so I went through every sporting store in town. I ended up at a specialty inline skate store, with the biggest and best range in town. They managed to cut some of the foam out of their biggest helmet so it would fit me. You may be asking 'but isn't the foam that they cut out, what makes it a helmet, and not a bucket?' and the answer is shut up. So I show up for the first lesson, shuffle out onto the ice, cling to the wall and drag myself down to the class group and look around. I'm the tallest person on the ice. By like a foot. Maybe a foot and a half. My wife and I are the only people who've actually been through puberty. The three or four people other than us who could if they wanted to, grow pubes - turn out to be the instructors. The average age of the class is 9. Also, I'm the only one wearing a helmet. My wife was sensible enough to look around the class, realise that no helmets were required and take hers off. I'm reasonably sure the kids thought she was kindly taking her retarded friend out for the day. I'm not a good enough skater for the 9 year old class of beginners. So I get bumped down a class. Where the average age is 5. A small child named Thomas, who might if he jumped be able to reach my hip, is skating backwards in front of me, offering to hold my hand, and shouting encouragements 'You can do it mister! You can do it!' - I later found out that Thomas is 3 and a half. His sister is one of the instructors. He can ice skate better than I can walk. I seriously considered falling on him. Or using my helmet as a bludgeon to beat him into a coma. After a few weeks, a few other adults started coming out, and my wife managed to stop laughing at me for more than 5 minutes per lesson. The other adults told me that they had also always wanted to learn, but they were too embarassed. But if I could put myself through that kind of humiliation, so could they. Besides - everyone was laughing at me now and they wouldn't be noticed. Motherfuckers. The skate lessons were 45 minutes of 'lessons' and 45 minutes of free skating. The kids I was in classes with played tag. I was too crap at skating to play tag, so most of the time they used me as home base. Fortunately my arms are long and they were stupid - so when they'd make fun of me I'd grab hold of them and let momentum carry me through a spin and throw the little bastards down the ice - the only thing I ever learned to do with anything approaching grace on ice. Getting those little bastards airborn was the highlight of the 13 weeks of saturday classes. Eventually I mastered enough that I can awkwardly shuffle around the ice with a little bit more confidence, as long as there's a wall I can slam into when I need to stop. Then we got to canada, and the fucking river wasn't even frozen - we were too early in the season.
I didn't start smoking anything- cigarettes, weed, crushed up sea sickness pills, etc. until I was almost 22. I honestly don't know if that's considered "late" or not.
I couldn't keep track of which ocean was the Atlantic and which was the Pacific until I was 19 and had to label them on a map quiz in a geography class. I had to relabel them for every map quiz of that semester and I still had to relearn it like 4 times over the course of the semester. Meanwhile, it took me less than a week to memorize the names and locations of all 190+ countries in the world. My brain works weird. Though, it could be because my study guides were not the most organized... here's the study guide I used to memorize the geography of Asia: Spoiler
My dad use to fly a lot for work and got a ridiculous amount of points. Until my teens I didn't know what "flying coach" meant. You know that Seinfeld episode where Elaine flies coach and Jerry flies first class? I honestly thought the joke was the ridiculous idea of putting three small seats next to each other on a plane. You can imagine my disappointment when we started flying coach and I didn't get my steak dinner.
I never broke a bone until I was 20 years-old. I managed to climb trees, jump from rock cliffs, run through woods, and fight kids twice my size all through my childhood, yet I break my leg getting off the couch.
I'll be 31 in October and I hadn't left Canada until just over a year ago when my wife and I drove to Buffalo and spent a night. I've since been to Pittsburgh and Cuba and I'm flying to Mexico in a few weeks.
I grew up in very rural Iowa, so I was quite sheltered. I didn't get into an airplane until I was 20, and that was to go skydiving. An actual trip lasted another year. I also didn't lose the v-card until I was 20 - and, which I told my now-boyfriend last night - I was the one to suggest the game "Just the Tip". I didn't drink until my second night of college or smoke weed until I was 22. I just last week inferred that I was even sleeping in the same bed as my boyfriend to my parents, which was met with a deep frown and a change of subject. I'm 24. I'm a little late to the game.
I haven't been out the country yet, not even Cancun or Canada. I also haven't had a surgery yet, but that is going to change next month, fucking wisdom teeth.
My girlfriend (aged 21) is a real 'sporto.' She plays fantasy baseball, fantasy hockey and can carry on a legit conversation about the NHL, MLB or CFL with most guys I know. However, two weeks ago though I learned something HILARIOUS about her. Up until two weeks ago she didn't know what a 'First-Down' meant in Football. She knew that it was a "good thing," and she knew to cheer when her team got one - But she had no idea how a team got one. I had to tell her all about first-downs, and how many tries a team gets to get another one. Once I explained the concept to her, she totally understood, but was highly embarrassed by her previous ignorance.
I had not started drinking until the very tail end of Freshman year of college. I guess I never had the chance to be exposed to it while keeping some strange notion it was for hooligans. I had not started seriously working out until Junior year of college and that's only because I had a plan I could stick to - Mike's Beginner Program from the old board. By the time I had started though, it was a "Do or Die" situation since I had let my weight spiral out of control thanks to the booze on top of decades of slovenly habits. Since then, I've taken up rock climbing and BJJ.
I have been a bit of a gambler for a while now, and can play any game, and know all the rules of all the games. I can count a 2 card deck in blackjack. If I am too drunk to count, I can play perfect strategy even when blackout drunk. But I only just figured out craps. Had no idea why there was "come" written on the table, what a pass line was, or even how the game was played. I think I have it down, so I will have to try my hand at it when I am in Vegas.
I have never been to Olive Garden. This is apparently a big fucking deal. When people find this out about me they react as if I told them I've never heard the Beatles. This was once responsible for getting me sucked into an alternate dimension in New Jersey, but that's a different story.
I didn't try my first cigarette until probably 3 months before my 18th birthday. I didn't drink for the first time until Thanksgiving Break of my sophomore year of college. I smoked pot for the first time a few weeks before the start of that epic sophomore year of college.
Copenhagen. I literally just woke up from a nap and was gonna kill anyone that got between me and the lip I just packed. I smoked for 15 years and finally kicked that. Then I got turned on to a post gym lip about the time I turned 28, and have been hooked on this shit since.
I didn't start drinking till I was 21. I'd have a beer or two but I never got drunk. I lost my V-card at a very embarassing late age.
Seriously: I didn't eat meatloaf for the first time until I was 28. My parents never made it once as a kid.
First orgasm: age 25 First orgasm without battery operated assistance: age 28 (otherwise known as a month ago WOO HOO MOTHERFUCKERS!!) I think the phrase "late to the party" is a vast understatement. EDIT: Yes, I am married. None of the above should be blamed on my, ahem, hardworking husband.
I've been late to the party with almost everything I've ever done. First kiss: 18. I was already in college. First (and only) time I've had sex: 20. First cigarette: 19. First alcoholic beverage: 17, at a friend's 18th birthday party, at his house. 1st time at a bar: 18 (legal age here). First time smoking pot: 22. Didn't like it, haven't tried it since. Now for a change of tack... First surgery: 2. Goodbye, continually infected tonsils. Hello, asthma. Fuck. First near-death experience: 2, again. Thank you again, asthma. Fucker.