By Bob Ede

A few evenings ago I attended a meeting. The meeting was held in a building with a conference room. It also housed a health centre. On arrival and through the door, posters exclaiming the value of safe sex and the danger of smoking hung on every piece of wall.

I walked through the waiting room past a couple of chairs around a coffee table. Scattered over were a shuffle of assorted dog-eared magazines with a box of Kleenex as the centerpiece. A typical waiting room.

The meeting ran long. The bottled water was free. I pretended it was beer. After about four hours of reports and counting money. I excused myself to deal with my fluid intake. Out into the hall, past the waiting room, darkened now, posters more ominous, finally finding the men’s.

The washroom was well lit. It was like sanctuary. Everything freshly cleaned, the janitor having made his final rounds earlier. A basket beside the sink. It wasn’t filled with little soaps or potpourri. It was filled with condoms. A small sign said, “TAKE ONE. ALWAYS Remember safe sex.”

I peed. Washed. And I’m not sure what made me do it, but I grabbed a condom on the way out, and tucked it into my pocket.

I have no need for a condom. Safe sex for me is not getting a cramp. I’m like a starter pistol, except slower and not as loud. When I go off, only a small puff of gunpowder dust escapes the barrel.  Harmless and sad.

But that condom felt good in my pocket. I went back to the meeting a viral young man with all my bases covered.

After the meeting I went home late. I forgot about the condom.

Today, I reached into my pocket for change for a coffee. I pulled out the condom. I was a little embarrassed for taking it. On closer inspection – it wasn’t a condom. It was a small package of personal lubricant. I didn’t even know such a thing existed.

No wonder there are so many teenage pregnancies. They are grabbing lubricant out of the ‘safe sex’ basket instead of condoms!

I am not old enough to forget what it was like to be a teenager. The horniness used to make my ears ring.

Now, a young man making the same mistake would be in trouble.

Picture a young couple getting hot and heavy. The girl saying, “Do you have anything?”

The boy, proud for grabbing a condom at the health unit saying, “Yes.”

Opening the packet expecting to fumble with rubber, but instead being splattered in lube.

And when she says, “Is it on.”

I guarantee, there is not a male alive who wouldn’t say, “Ya, it’s on.”

It wouldn’t be a lie either.

As for my packet of lube, I think I will put it with the cigarettes I found but didn’t smoke.

It’s tough getting old: all the moralizing can be tiring.

Bob Ede is an Invermere-based writer and photographer who has a habit of making me (Ian Cobb) laugh out loud.

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