“Well then, I’ve got a special delivery for you.” I handed her the package, figuring her parents were probably just around the corner. Kids her age didn’t usually answer doors by themselves, but maybe her mom was in the bathroom or something.
That’s when the package began to vibrate.
The little girl’s eyes went wide. “Ooh! It’s moving! Is it alive? Is it a puppy? Or a pony? Please tell me it’s a pony! Or a unicorn! It’s a unicorn, isn’t it?”
“Uh . . .” I stared at the buzzing box in her tiny hands, my brain trying to process what was happening. “No, sweetie, it’s not—”
But she was already tearing at the brown paper with the single-minded determination of a kid on Christmas morning. “It’s like a present! A buzzy present!”
“Wait, maybe we should—” I reached out to stop her, but it was too late.
The packaging gave way to reveal a sleek black box with marketing that was definitely, unmistakably, absolutelynotmeant for five-year-old eyes.
The product inside continued its enthusiastic demonstration, and I felt my soul leave my body.
“What is it?” she asked, removing the wildly vibrating lady’s pleasure wand and hefting it above her head, posing like a miniature Statue of Liberty. She stared with innocent fascination, turning it this way and that like she was examining a scientific specimen.
My brain performed the mental equivalent of a complete system shutdown. Every rational thought I’d ever had fled like rats from a sinking ship. The little girl blinked up, waiting expectantly for an answer that I absolutely did not have.
“It’s, uh . . .” My mouth was moving before my brain could catch up. For absolutely no logical reason, my mind landed on lunch. “It’s a kitchen tool . . . for making pasta noodles.”
She tilted her head thoughtfully, still examining the vibrating device. “At least it has squishy handles. That’s so it won’t slip out of your hand, right? They kind of look like balls. Why would they put balls on a pasta maker? It’ssoweird.”
“The weirdest,” I confirmed weakly, wondering if there was a patron saint of postal workers I could pray to in that moment. “It . . . uh . . . stirs them up with the sauce really well, makes sure every noodle . . . um . . . gets splattered.”
Jesus, what was coming out of my mouth?
I could feel the trauma clawing its way up my neck, likely making me look all red and embarrassed and wanting to jump behind the nearby hedge.
“Daddy!” she called over her shoulder, still holding the item like it was show-and-tell. “The mailman brought us a pasta maker!”
Footsteps thundered down what sounded like stairs, followed by a voice that made every nerve ending in my body stand at attention.
“Debbie, what did I tell you about answering the door by your—oh my God.”
I stood to find a guy who looked like he’d just tumbled out of a science fair. He was skinny, almost scrawny, and only rose to my shoulder. His brown hair stuck up in about twelve different directions, and wire-rimmed glasses had slipped down his nose. His cardigan looked soft enough to nap in, and his face was cycling through approximately seventeen different expressions, none of which looked good.
“Daddy, look what the mailman brought us!” Debbie announced cheerfully, holding up the still-buzzing device. “He says it’s for making pasta, but I think it’s broken. All it does is wiggle, like it’s trying to bust out of its own skin. But look, it has ball handles. That’s good, right?”
I bit my bottom lip and tried not to die.
The man stared at the scene before him: me, half dressed and standing on his doorstep like some kind of demented stripper turned postal worker; his five-year-old holding a massive black vibrator; and the vibrator itself, which seemed determined to make this moment as mortifying as possible, switching from fast to intermittent to “rock your world” mode . . . at random . . . like it was a store display cycling through its levels to illustrate every possible feature.
His mouth opened and closed several times, like a fish trying to figure out how it had ended up on dry land.
“That’s . . .” he started, his voice about three octaves higher than it probably usually was. “Debbie, that’s not . . . we don’t . . .”
“Can we have pasta for dinner? Please?” she asked with the kind of earnest curiosity that had probably gotten humanity expelled from the Garden of Eden. “Mr. Mailman, tell Daddy to make pasta. I want to see the Willie Wee work.”
The man covered his face with both hands.
“Well . . .” I looked desperately between the pair. “It’s for . . . veryspecializedpasta.”
The man made a sound that might have been a whimper.
“What kind of pasta?” Debbie pressed, because of course she did.
“The . . .” I cast around wildly for inspiration. “The really . . . twisty kind they serve in fancy restaurants.”
