by Rosa Fledermaus

As a child watching television with my father, it would mortify me when scantily clad people or—God forbid—sex scenes flashed across the screen. My face would redden, and I'd feel embarrassed for some reason that remains unknown. From where did  this strange strain of conservatism eminate from?

I firmly believe in facing fears. I moved to the South because I feared the Ku Klux Klan; I lept into a crowd and surfed it when I was afraid no one would catch me. I thought starting a business in a country where I didn't speak the language was the most formidable fear I could face. But nothing prepared me for when my father, who knows my prudishness in his presence, mischieviously asked if we could go to the Sex Machine Museum.

My judgement blurred, but the line being drawn after an afternoon of micro-brew tasting, I accepted the challenge. We bothed swayed intoxicatedly while buying our tickets.  Grabbing mine hastily, I dove in, as if the building were a subterranean sewer tank that promised treasure amid its muck. “I see,” my father said from somewhere behind me.  “You're going to pretend you're not with  me!”

“You're my Dad—I love you!” I shouted sprinting upstairs to get to the third floor ahead of him.“Now stop talking to me you strange, strange man!”

It jarred me to view the multitude of naked people in funky positions in my father's proximity. Even the drawings got to me. I found an antique peddle-driven dildo constructed for a German women's prison  particularly hard to, um, deal with. My father said something about splinters; I hazily scanned the room, spotting one freaky device after another—and guessing the number of potentially embarrassing things my Dad could say.

“Mareek!” my father yelled from one second-floor room to another. “Come 'ere and let me get a picture of you in front of the Wall of Dildos and clit piercings! I want to mail it to your mother as a postcard!” 

A hipster tourist couple smirked. My father topped it off with,“I wanna see if I can get her put on the public porn watch list with the U.S. Post Office!“

I smiled in the couple's direction and breathed deeply as I pushed past them to stand before the pointy protrusions and unnatural body jewelry. Facing my most formidable fear, I turned toward my father and struck a pose of semi-crucifixion.

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