Like a Virgin: Four Routine Tasks That You Forget Were Terrifying the First Time Around

By Emily Walls

Aging is mostly an ugly, drooping process, but chief among its virtues, in fact possibly its only virtue, is the power to forget. Mothers endure labor, swear they won't have any more children, forget about the pain over time, and then pop another one of those devils out two years later. Heartbroken souls go through agonizing breakups and swear off love forever, only to fall head over heels for someone new just months down the road.

Here at Verbal Infusion, we feel ourselves duty bound to remind you of your past pain and, with any luck, make you experience it again. To that purpose, I present to you today four tasks that have perhaps become routine to you, but were once frightening, even painful, prospects. Let us never forget the anxiety of new situations and thereby fail to empathize with the young or inexperienced. Consider us your Fountain of Youth.

#4 Riding Public Transportation

It doesn't matter if it's a train or rickshaw, the anxiety you feel when facing your first ride on public transportation will leave you shivering, mumbling, and soaked in your own urine. Thankfully, these are the first requirements for riding public transportation.

The main source of tension you feel is the firm belief that everyone else knows exactly what to do, and you are the only poor bastard who doesn't have a clue. Mostly, you are correct.

Buses, I think, are the worst. Trains are busy enough to mask your blunders, taxis private enough, but buses boast the greatest people:silence ratio. You can cram a bus full of passengers until the standing space is so crowded that every seated passenger pays for his comfort with a crotch to the face, and still those riders will not say word one to each other. They will, however, glare living death at you if you get the fare wrong, and let's face it, some of them will shiv you. The fare is easily the most intimidating portion of bus travel.

1. It's the first impression you make on the driver and other passengers. Do it right, they assume you're a pro and leave you alone. Do it wrong, shiv.
2. Incorrect fare means you make the other passengers wait until you get it right. You do not want to make the other passengers wait.
3. Every transit system is different, but they all share a common no-cash policy. What they use in place of cash is anyone's guess—and I mean literally you make your best guess, because instructions will be placed exactly nowhere. If you're like me, your first attempt will be payment by pigeon feathers, but you are wrong. More than likely, you need to bribe a nearby street vendor into selling you some kind of transportation card that looks almost as official as a Post-It note.
4. No one will tell you what to do with that card, so you'll have to get in line behind other people and copy what they do. Sometimes you need to tap it against a card reader; other times you need to insert it in a slot. DO NOT GIVE IT TO THE DRIVER. Bus drivers have moved beyond our realm.

So let's say you get the fare right (somehow) and land yourself a spot on the bust. You must then wade through the murky waters of seat selection and bag placement. When you have comfortably settled yourself between Mr. Shifty Eyes and Ms. Mumbles, you will be free to examine the map and schedule. Lucky for you, the map has been expertly painted for the transit system by a Jackson Pollock enthusiast. On your first ever bus ride, you will read the map incorrectly and get off at the wrong stop (if you figure out how to get off at all), but take heart. Although you are now in an unfamiliar and scary part of town, you have successfully taken a bus. The rest of your journey should be a walk in the park. Seriously, get your tennis shoes out. You're walking.

Unless, of course, you have a car, in which case you need to prepare yourself for...

#3 Pumping Gas

You fill up your tank probably 2-8 times per month, depending on your commute, and I'll bet that you don't spend ten seconds of those 2-8 fill-ups worrying about vehicle placement, nozzle type, or payment method. It is all so routine to you now that you listen to music, talk with your friends, clean your windshield, and exit the station without even noticing that somewhere in the throes of routine, you filled your tank. But remember the first time you did it? And I'm not counting the times your dad dragged you out of your cozy backseat and into twenty degree weather to teach you how to set the pump on family road trips. I'm talking about the first time you did it completely by yourself after you got your license.

Pumping gas is surprisingly intimidating because, due to the variety of pump types and payment methods, you can be thwarted by your ignorance at any moment. Some are prepay, some are not. Some use buttons, some use levers.

The first time you pull up, you assume that everyone is watching you and that they'll think you're just a stupid kid if you get it wrong. So you go through the steps and act cool and try to look nonchalant, but if for some reason you miss a step, you know that the the clerk is going to shout instructions at you over the intercom. At fragile sixteen, intercoms can only mean ridicule and shame. James Dean surely never got intercom'd.

But it's not just sixteen-year-olds who get the filling station jitters. I lived in Oregon for a year, where by law every gas station must be full service only. People born and raised there have never pumped their own gas, and I've heard a few of them say they'll drive twenty extra miles to find full service stations when they're out of state.

Most of us go through anxiety now when we have to pay exorbitant prices at the pump, but at least we no longer have to endure anxiety over the pumps themselves.

#2 Going to the Gyno

Yes, I'm going there.

My first gyno exam can't be called "intimidating" exactly, because it was a surprise. Like, "Surprise! Speculum!" At age nineteen, I went to my family doctor to find out why I had been on my period for two months. I expected her to discuss my symptoms with me, talk over desired outcomes, and prescribe me a pill. Instead, I got a surprise pelvic exam from my doc and her nurse, who I can only assume was named Helga and who looked like an exact cross between Jamie Lee Curtis and a Velociraptor. The exam was conducted with the sensitivity of a rototiller, and although my doctor did not find the problem that day, at least she answered my questions about alien probes.

And that's the thing about gynecological exams: until you have one, you don't really know what to expect. Moreover, the exam is full of paradoxes. First, you pay the doctor for her medical services, but given the circumstances, it seems like the doctor should have to pay you (or at least take you out to a fancy dinner first). Second, the exam is likely to make you tense, but you have to relax for it. And finally, you have to reconcile dual desires to make a good impression on your doctor and to be in no way memorable.

A friend of a friend, who we'll call Sally, failed miserably on this last point. In the hours before her annual check-up, Sally was at the home of her grown daughter. Wanting to freshen up a bit before her appointment, Sally rummaged around in her daughter's medicine cabinet and found a bottle of feminine spray, which she used. At her appointment later that day, everything was progressing as usual until her doctor made an uncharacteristic remark.

"Ooh. Fancy," he said.

Sally had no idea what he was talking about, but not wanting to prolong the exam or make it any more uncomfortable than necessary, she stayed silent. Puzzled, she returned home after her appointment and relayed the incident to her daughter.

"But what in the world would make him say that?" her daughter said.

"I've asked myself the same question, and I can't figure it. All I used was the feminine spray you keep in your medicine cabinet."

"Mom, I don't have any feminine spray...I do have body glitter though."

Sally's doctor, I am sure, remembers Sally.

The thing about these exams is that we make too much of them in our minds beforehand, particularly before our first ones. We forget that they're completely routine to our doctors and that if we have good doctors (always get a recommendation) things will be quick and painless. And now that I've divulged far too much, let's move on to a topic that men (who will never again complain about turning their heads and coughing) can identify with too.

#1 Speaking a Foreign Language

The purpose of foreign language classes in the U.S. is twofold: 1) to fill out the seventh period in what could otherwise be a mercifully short school day, and 2) to arm our youngsters' vocabulary arsenals with additional resources for possible dick jokes on college placement exams. At no point do we expect to use these languages with their native speakers, so our first experiences getting from el aeropuerto to los museos in other countries often feature us babbling in Pig Latin and gesturing with the enthusiasm of a thousand Ewoks.

We know the theory. We know that "hola" will trigger a greeting, perhaps even an introduction, but we don't quite believe it will work. There is a chance—an all-too-likely chance, if you happened to attend my high school—that we have been the subjects of an elaborate ruse that the grown-ups instigated to humiliate us in foreign countries.

Perhaps they've been lying to me for years, I think. Perhaps I've learned gibberish. Probably I've learned gibberish. There sits a smiling Bolivian concierge to "welcome" me. She's probably just waiting for me to speak so she can taunt me. SLUT. Well, I won't give her the satisfaction. I'll never say hola! I am not her pawn! "I AM NOT YOUR PAWN," I say as I storm off in the direction of the town dump.

Jonny handles his foreign language nerves with a touch more aplomb. After arriving in Mexico in 2008, Jonny and a few other friends, one of whom spoke fluent Spanish, hopped in a cab. The fluent one gave directions to the cabby, and Jonny sat for a while in comfortable silence in the passenger seat, that is, until he could no longer sit by without trying out his two semesters of Spanish vocabulary. So right there in that silent cab, he just listed off all the Spanish words he could bring to mind, and in no particular order.

"Pantalones." (Pants.)
"El gato." (The cat.)
"La leche." (The milk.)
"Sacapunta." (Pencil sharpener.)

And so on. The driver did not understand...understandably.

Even saying a foreign word to English speakers in the U.S. can be intimidating. I remember when Chocolat came out, I learned how to pronounce its title from movie trailers and award shows. I heard some idiots pronounce it like regular old "chocolate," and I mercilessly mocked them in my mind. Then came time for me to see the movie at the theater. I stood with a large group of my friends in a long line at the ticket stand, and I mentally rehearsed exactly how I was going to say it.

"One for Chocolat, please [flawless French], and here's my student ID." I thought about it and thought about it. "Ch like Sh. Silent T. Stress the third syllable. Ch like Sh. Silent T. Stress the third syllable."

I ignored conversations with my friends just so I would be prepared when the time came. I was the first of my friends to get to the ticket window. The girl at the counter said, "Hi. What movie would you like to see?"

I took a deep breath, braced myself, and shouted, "CHO-LOT, PLEASE."

I yelled the hardest Ch and sharpest T you've ever imagined at that poor woman. Two of my friends burst into laughter on the spot. My face is flushing even now as I write about it, but its color is nothing to the deep maroon it manifested that night. Worst of all, the ticket taker did not understand me and asked me please to repeat myself.

"The chocolate movie, please," I mumbled.

"I'm sorry?"

"ONE TICKET FOR THE CHOCOLATE MOVIE—THE ONE WITH JOHNNY DEPP."

And if that wasn't enough punishment for the night, I went on to watch Chocolat.

By Emily Walls