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I remember my first open house party. Tommy O’Keefe’s parents were away in Cleveland on account of a sick uncle. The house was enormous like something out of a John Hughes movie. There were five kegs – a party with three or more was considered a “rager.” My group of girlfriends and I told our parents we would be sleeping at Evangeline’s house. Evangeline was the school slut who lived in her parents’ basement. She had her own entrance, no curfew, and a body far beyond her high school years. Her folks were very self-absorbed and didn’t keep tabs on her. It was at Evangeline’s that I learned everything about boys.
That night, after the cops broke up Tommy’s rager, we walked drunkenly back to Evangeline’s place and all crowded around a big bowl of M&M’s, sipping diet coke and talking about who made out with whom at the party. Evangeline picked through the candies, sorting them by color. “Eat the green ones. They make you horny!” she exclaimed, her red lipped smile dancing against her perfect pale skin. We all swooped in and devoured them, not sure what would happen. From what I recall we all passed out watching “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”
Somehow, ever since that night, Evangeline’s sage words always stuck with me. Whenever I ate those special little candies, I felt as if I had a secret – I was hornier than everyone else because I had “eaten the green ones.” It was not until my sophomore year in college when my roommate questioned my strange ritual that my bubble burst. She pointed out the list of ingredients, revealing that the green ones were in no way superior to the rest. I was so sad. It was like the moment when I found out that Santa Claus was not a real man who shimmied down the chimney at night, but actually my grandmother. Or the day I found out that it was really my Mom and not the Tooth Fairy who left money under my pillow. In an instant, green M&M’s were just chocolate with a green candy shell and nothing more.
