in high school, i was the only male employee working at the local dairy queen. the owner of the little fast food ice cream shop was a macho firefighter named jack, who decided it would be best if his store were staffed with nothing but the prettiest of local teenage girls. i spent my 8-, 12- and sometimes 16-hour shifts chatting with the blonde cheerleaders, flirting with the freckled volleyball players and gossiping with the ponytailed church youth group members. this was indiana circa 1995, after all.

i got the job because my dad went to high school with jack, so jack reluctantly hired me, figuring that since i was a boy i could help stock shelves, mop floors and spend what seemed like hours filling the giant vat of ice milk in the so-silent-you-can-hear-your-heartbeat walk-in refrigerator. of course, because all of the other employees were hired based on their looks (or female charms), i quickly rose through the ranks to manager (i guess being able to count change and deal with angry customers helped).

it was a wonderful job for a high school senior to have—flexible hours, unlimited shifts, free sugary ice cream and caffeinated sodas, and practically no adult supervision (jack would rarely stop by his store to check up on us). we played loud music and danced around the cramped store, occasionally getting into butterscotch/whip cream/strawberry fights, and always having a good time.

the final summer before i went off to college, i’d started to grow into the cocky confident eric that i am today. finally assured of my homosexuality, and also of the fact that i’d shortly be sneaking off to college in california, i became quite outgoing (and therefore attractive) to the girls i worked with.

one by one they started flirting with me, and eventually my favorite girl to work with, bridgette left me a little folded-up love letter clipped to my timecard. the moment i’d been dreading for a long time was finally upon me, i had to come out to the girls at work. they took it well, and adopted me as their little gay mascot. i was relieved, too, as now it meant all of their thuggish jock boyfriends would finally stop feeling so threatened by the fact that i was spending 16 hours a day with their girlfriends.

i was also glad, as it meant i had someone to share my juicy new gossip with—i’d started dating my very first boyfriend, jeff. as i’ve talked about at great lengths here over the years, i was head-over-heels smitten with jeff, and as a 17yo pubescent boy i thought about him 25 hours a day. the problem, of course, was that i needed to work my ass off during that summer, in order to earn as much money as i could before going off to university a month later.

jeff and i would talk on the phone every morning, every afternoon as soon as i got to work, later in the evening on my break at work, and the moment i got home after work. i’d often drive over to his house (in the neighboring town 20 minutes away) at 1am, he’d climb out of his window and we’d sneak off to the cemetery or the lake or the train yard—anywhere we could find. it was 100% puppy love, and it was bliss.

he called me up one afternoon, and begged me not to go to work. i would be going off to college in less than a week, and he wanted to spend every last minute with me that he could. i’d already called off so many times already, and jack was threatening to withhold my final paycheck unless i worked all the shifts i could during the peak summer weeks.

i needed an excuse.

i beeped jack and left him a message saying that there was an emergency and i wouldn’t be able to come in and manage the store that night. i’m sure he was furious, but jeff had planned a picnic and i was not about to miss that. i’d figure out what to tell jack when i saw him the next day.

the next day, i arrived at work with purple hickey on my neck, which matched our pink-and-purple (no lie!) striped uniforms perfectly. walking in the back door of the dairy queen, before i could even contemplate my excuse, jack cornered me. you better fucking have a good excuse, eric, cuz lines were around the corner yesterday and i probably lost $500 in business!

the neurons in my noggin frantically struggled, deliberated, and managed to remember the excuse that bridgette used just the week before to get out of her shift. would it work? would jack believe my preposterous reason for calling in sick?

jack, i had a yeast infection.

his muscled hand came up to his forehead in disbelief. dude, are you serious? can guys even get those?

looking down at my chocolate syrup-covered shoes, i admitted, yeah, it’s gross. and it burns. there’s an ointment, though…

he sent me home for the rest of the night, and told me he was off to the clinic to get himself checked too. i drove right over to jeff’s house, and brought him a mint chocolate chip milkshake, which we shared as the sun set.