When I was in sixth grade I discovered Audio Galaxy, and in keeping with the overall momentum of the universe, shortly thereafter discovered pop punk. I was a big fan of the band MxPx, and I would be lying if I said alternating capitalization and the presence of x’s in their name had nothing to do with the appeal. So bootlegging my way through their catalog I eventually came across a file titled the “Summer of ’69,” hit download, waited the three days for it to download, then opened that bitch in Real Player.

Then immediate, crushing horror

I got my first real sexing
In the summer of ’69

I immediately x’d the Real Player window,right clicked that .mp3, and sent it to the recycle bin like I was banishing it to hell. I then emptied the recycle bin, then emptied the now empty bin a few more times just for good measure. Then threw some more files in there, and emptied it again, because I thought computers were like when the trash compactor gets clogged and you throw some orange rinds down there or old pieces of bread to help things along. Just keep on opening blank Notepad documents, saving them, and chucking them in the recycle bin.

I never thought ’69 referred to an actual 69. That seemed too obvious and childish even for an eleven year old. All I wanted to do was be punk rock and now I had downloaded smut onto the family Hewlett Packard. For a decade I was terrified that .mp3 would mysteriously reappear, like Samara climbing out of the well in The Ring, and I would have to defend my morals to my parents, who would never believe me, because what idiot doesn’t think 69 means 69.

Even when I was much older this experience was incredibly traumatizing. It never made the transfer to the part of your brain where you recognize the distance between you and the event and can find the humor in it. Summer of ’69 was always there beside me, staring me down, threatening to expose my sexual deviance.

Then one day I heard Bryan Adams. This motherfucker is saying six string. This is a semi-ironic cover of a shitty Bryan Adams song about a guitar. I know I should blame MxPx and their marble-mouthed pronunciation, but I just hate Bryan Adams. Bryan Adams made me feel like a sexual deviant. Bryan Adams made me afraid to try new things. Bryan Adams made me empty the Windows XP recycle bin obsessively for two or three years.