Eternal Tomboy
TMF Master
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2001
- Messages
- 980
- Points
- 18
I read an article about tickling that led to an interesting chain of events this weekend. Here’s a link if you want to read it:
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/...kling_a_child_connects_parents_and_kids_.html
The quote from the article that both depressed and scared the shit out of me was this, “….the amount of tickling in your life diminishes with each passing year. Tell me how much you are tickled and I can tell you how old you are. After the age of 40, Provine says, the frequency of tickling drops tenfold….”
Drops TENFOLD, seriously?! I’ll be turning 44 this summer, and (as much as I hate to admit it) I know all too well that this statistical fact is true – unless you happen to be one of those lucky bastards that has a partner who is equally into tickling, or more than willing to indulge your fetish for it. I don't.
Back in high school and college, I was probably tickled everyday (to some degree), but now I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve been tickled in the last year. So, sometimes us 40-somethings (and older) need to get a little creative in order to instigate the tickles that used to come so naturally when we were younger. This true story that happened this past weekend was a product of that devious creativity….
My job entails A LOT of time spent driving in a rig with a couple of co-workers (I work for a mobile vet company). We work weekends, and during those two days, we’ll put in about 24-hours on the clock (12 of those hours are spent driving in the rig from place to place). They are long, exhausting shifts and it helps the days go faster when we can find things to entertain ourselves with while we’re driving, otherwise the days can seem endless.
So, to break up the monotony this weekend, I decided that the three of us (in the rig) would take a “getting to know you quiz” while we were driving around - I figured it would be good for a few laughs. I scrolled through a couple of websites until I found a quiz that had about 100 questions, and being the manipulative ‘lee that I am, I made sure that one of those questions was “Are you ticklish?”
I was the one driving, so I passed my iPhone over to my co-worker (my good friend, Jude) to read the questions. The question involving tickling was #38, and having to wade through all the previous questions about favorite color, jellybean flavor, and places to travel, etc. was pure torture!!! I wasn’t keeping track of the number of questions asked, so every time he went to read a question, my stomach filled with butterflies and I held my breath.
After what seemed like FOREVER, he finally popped the tickle question, and the butterflies in my stomach went ballistic. He answered the question first – saying that he only had one tickle spot on his whole body.
I said, “You can’t admit something like that and then NOT tell us where it is!”
He said, “My mom didn’t raise a fool. There’s no way I’m telling where it is; besides it’s in a place that you’re unlikely to find.” (I assumed he meant that it was in a very private location that only a lover would stumble upon, so I reluctantly stopped prodding.)
Then it was my turn to answer the question, so I lied (oldest ‘lee trick in the book), and when he asked if I was ticklish, I joked, “No, it’s an old war injury – my nerves are totally dead from the neck down.”
My answer got a few laughs, but then the unthinkable happened – he DIDN’T tickle me to find out the truth, or even prod me for more information!! I guess I’ve been stuck in TMFland so long that I just naturally assumed he would call my obvious bluff. When he didn’t and then went on to read the next question, I was totally crushed. I had concocted a rather elaborate plan to get tickled, and it had failed miserably…. and now I was stuck answering questions about my favorite food and whether or not I preferred to write in pen or pencil. FUCK. MY. LIFE.
A few hours went by, and it was nearing the end of the day. We were still in the rig, but we were no longer driving. We had parked and were waiting for the last job of the day to begin. In the 20-minutes or so of downtime, Jude decided to play some YouTube videos on his phone for us to watch. He picked something completely obnoxious (the clip of the “how bow dah?” girl that someone had made a music video for – it was set to a cringe-worthy and repetitive electronic beat that made me want to gouge out my eardrums.)
He knew it was annoying the hell out of me, but refused to turn it off. In an effort to restore my sanity, I snatched the phone out of his hands and refused to give it back to him. And then it happened – he tickled me! He reached over from the passenger seat and tickled my ribs for a couple of seconds. It was so unexpected that I nearly jumped out of my skin, and I let out a loud squeak.
I felt the heat flood my face, and the butterflies in my stomach woke back up and threw themselves a major victory party. My ribs are ticklish, but they don’t usually make it into the top five worst spots on my body – until that moment. I don’t know if it was because I hadn’t been tickled in eons, or because my guard was down, but that tickle felt like it was off the charts!!
“You lied about being ticklish! I can’t BELIEVE you lied on a “getting to know you” quiz! I bet you don’t like orange jellybeans either,” Jude teased.
“Well you were the one who was gullible enough to believe my war injury story,” I laughed.
“I thought you were just joking around about why you weren’t ticklish. I didn’t think you LIED.”
“I didn’t lie – you just scared me, so I jumped,” I lied again, hoping to keep the tickle game going.
Unfortunately, he didn’t take the bait. “Yeah, whatever LIAR,” he joked and then let the subject drop.
At the end of the day, we went back to the office to fill out some paperwork. While he was standing (kind of hunched over) a table writing something, I snuck up behind him and gave him a dual handed rib tickle. He didn’t even flinch. Unlike me, it looked as though he didn’t lie on the quiz. Dammit.
“Trying to find my tickle spot?” he asked with a smug grin.
I giggled and said, “You kind of asked for it – when you admit something like that, I feel compelled to try and find it.”
“If there was ever a day you actually did find it, that would be one very interesting day,” he chuckled, once again implying his ticklish spot was in a private location that a platonic friend wouldn’t find.
After I left work, I couldn’t stop replaying the tickle scenes in my head, and the resulting conversations about it. I was lost so far into fantasyland during my commute home, that I barely remember the drive. Perhaps if the fates are kind, this 40-something-year-old will be disproving some of those depressing tickle statistics in the future, and recapturing a bit of her youth again
Hey, a girl can hope
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/...kling_a_child_connects_parents_and_kids_.html
The quote from the article that both depressed and scared the shit out of me was this, “….the amount of tickling in your life diminishes with each passing year. Tell me how much you are tickled and I can tell you how old you are. After the age of 40, Provine says, the frequency of tickling drops tenfold….”
Drops TENFOLD, seriously?! I’ll be turning 44 this summer, and (as much as I hate to admit it) I know all too well that this statistical fact is true – unless you happen to be one of those lucky bastards that has a partner who is equally into tickling, or more than willing to indulge your fetish for it. I don't.
Back in high school and college, I was probably tickled everyday (to some degree), but now I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve been tickled in the last year. So, sometimes us 40-somethings (and older) need to get a little creative in order to instigate the tickles that used to come so naturally when we were younger. This true story that happened this past weekend was a product of that devious creativity….
My job entails A LOT of time spent driving in a rig with a couple of co-workers (I work for a mobile vet company). We work weekends, and during those two days, we’ll put in about 24-hours on the clock (12 of those hours are spent driving in the rig from place to place). They are long, exhausting shifts and it helps the days go faster when we can find things to entertain ourselves with while we’re driving, otherwise the days can seem endless.
So, to break up the monotony this weekend, I decided that the three of us (in the rig) would take a “getting to know you quiz” while we were driving around - I figured it would be good for a few laughs. I scrolled through a couple of websites until I found a quiz that had about 100 questions, and being the manipulative ‘lee that I am, I made sure that one of those questions was “Are you ticklish?”
I was the one driving, so I passed my iPhone over to my co-worker (my good friend, Jude) to read the questions. The question involving tickling was #38, and having to wade through all the previous questions about favorite color, jellybean flavor, and places to travel, etc. was pure torture!!! I wasn’t keeping track of the number of questions asked, so every time he went to read a question, my stomach filled with butterflies and I held my breath.
After what seemed like FOREVER, he finally popped the tickle question, and the butterflies in my stomach went ballistic. He answered the question first – saying that he only had one tickle spot on his whole body.
I said, “You can’t admit something like that and then NOT tell us where it is!”
He said, “My mom didn’t raise a fool. There’s no way I’m telling where it is; besides it’s in a place that you’re unlikely to find.” (I assumed he meant that it was in a very private location that only a lover would stumble upon, so I reluctantly stopped prodding.)
Then it was my turn to answer the question, so I lied (oldest ‘lee trick in the book), and when he asked if I was ticklish, I joked, “No, it’s an old war injury – my nerves are totally dead from the neck down.”
My answer got a few laughs, but then the unthinkable happened – he DIDN’T tickle me to find out the truth, or even prod me for more information!! I guess I’ve been stuck in TMFland so long that I just naturally assumed he would call my obvious bluff. When he didn’t and then went on to read the next question, I was totally crushed. I had concocted a rather elaborate plan to get tickled, and it had failed miserably…. and now I was stuck answering questions about my favorite food and whether or not I preferred to write in pen or pencil. FUCK. MY. LIFE.
A few hours went by, and it was nearing the end of the day. We were still in the rig, but we were no longer driving. We had parked and were waiting for the last job of the day to begin. In the 20-minutes or so of downtime, Jude decided to play some YouTube videos on his phone for us to watch. He picked something completely obnoxious (the clip of the “how bow dah?” girl that someone had made a music video for – it was set to a cringe-worthy and repetitive electronic beat that made me want to gouge out my eardrums.)
He knew it was annoying the hell out of me, but refused to turn it off. In an effort to restore my sanity, I snatched the phone out of his hands and refused to give it back to him. And then it happened – he tickled me! He reached over from the passenger seat and tickled my ribs for a couple of seconds. It was so unexpected that I nearly jumped out of my skin, and I let out a loud squeak.
I felt the heat flood my face, and the butterflies in my stomach woke back up and threw themselves a major victory party. My ribs are ticklish, but they don’t usually make it into the top five worst spots on my body – until that moment. I don’t know if it was because I hadn’t been tickled in eons, or because my guard was down, but that tickle felt like it was off the charts!!
“You lied about being ticklish! I can’t BELIEVE you lied on a “getting to know you” quiz! I bet you don’t like orange jellybeans either,” Jude teased.
“Well you were the one who was gullible enough to believe my war injury story,” I laughed.
“I thought you were just joking around about why you weren’t ticklish. I didn’t think you LIED.”
“I didn’t lie – you just scared me, so I jumped,” I lied again, hoping to keep the tickle game going.
Unfortunately, he didn’t take the bait. “Yeah, whatever LIAR,” he joked and then let the subject drop.
At the end of the day, we went back to the office to fill out some paperwork. While he was standing (kind of hunched over) a table writing something, I snuck up behind him and gave him a dual handed rib tickle. He didn’t even flinch. Unlike me, it looked as though he didn’t lie on the quiz. Dammit.
“Trying to find my tickle spot?” he asked with a smug grin.
I giggled and said, “You kind of asked for it – when you admit something like that, I feel compelled to try and find it.”
“If there was ever a day you actually did find it, that would be one very interesting day,” he chuckled, once again implying his ticklish spot was in a private location that a platonic friend wouldn’t find.
After I left work, I couldn’t stop replaying the tickle scenes in my head, and the resulting conversations about it. I was lost so far into fantasyland during my commute home, that I barely remember the drive. Perhaps if the fates are kind, this 40-something-year-old will be disproving some of those depressing tickle statistics in the future, and recapturing a bit of her youth again
Hey, a girl can hope
If your marriage is good other than the lack of tickling, then it's not worth screwing it up, I suppose.
