Illustration Friday: Germs

I went through a phase starting in 5th grade where I thought boys were plain nasty. In 4th grade, some of my best buddies had been boys. But something switched in that year right before middle school. I think it had something to do with the very dated sex-ed filmstrip (yes I said filmstrip) we had to watch. It had a scene in it that scarred my brain, permanently. Picture a really bad 60s style outline drawing of a boy in nothing but his birthday suit, who in the space of about three seconds grew 5 times his size, sprouted copious amounts of body hair, and for lack of a better word gargantuan 'man parts'. We were mortified. In my mind at least, my once unthreatening pals suddenly had this power, through something the film called 'puberty' to erupt into freakish man sized werewolves at any minute. Something had to be done.

In my small class of about 20 or so kids, the girls were outnumbered. After the horror of the sex-ed filmstrip had settled, I found a bottle of near empty "Bianca Breath Spray" in our medicine cabinet at home and had what I thought was a brilliant idea. I rushed into my room, got out my art supplies and went to work. The next day at school I proudly unveiled my "Anti-Boy Spray" to the other 5 girls in our class. I was positive that with a little label repurposing I could ward off "Boy Germs" and that horrible, lurking thing called puberty with a simple mint scented spritz. Every time a boy would touch my desk, they'd get a blast from that near empty Bianca bottle. Approach me at recess? Spritz. Tap my best friend on the shoulder? Spritz. Ask me for a pencil? Spritz. Ask what was in my lunch? Spritz. And on and on and on.

The Anti-Boy Spray didn't make it to middle school, although there were times I wished I had it. The powers of puberty were too strong, despite my very best intentions. The Boy Germs got to me, and just a few short years later I found myself wishing I could develop a spray with the opposite powers.