Every rose has its thorn

The summer before I started college, I dated a "nice guy". He was nice--he had a job, he had a car and he could score beer from his older friends. What else does a girl need at 18? He wasn't exactly ambitious or particularly attractive but he probably had the best personality of any man I have dated--he was happy and funny and completely worshipped me. It was great.

To sweeten the deal, his parents had a time-share condo at the beach and he invited me on vacation with him. When you are 18, there is nothing better than a week at the beach. It wasn't a big condo so we would have to sleep on the pull-out couch in the living room, but other than going to dinner with the family a few times, we were free to do as we pleased. Everything was set for it to be the best summer ever.

That is, until we got to the beach and I realized that sleeping on the pull-out couch meant my suitcase stayed in the living room. And since the TV and VCR (this was when DVDs were still prohibitively expensive) were in the living room, as well as the door to the condo, people would be around my things all the time. This was before I was as meticulous (OCD) as I am now, but I made a real effort to repack my things every morning so I didn't make a mess in the common area.

One day, we returned from a morning of outlet shopping to find his mom and stepdad sitting on the couch watching TV. His dad was holding my round brush.

I should note that I had really short hair that summer. The day before graduation, I chopped my long hair to an earlobe-length messy/choppy style (this was about the same time Michelle Williams did it on Dawson's Creek). My stylist sold me a round brush for short hair that was more spherical than cylindrical--it sort of looked like a microphone with bristles.

I'll admit this brush was definitely interesting looking, but it had been packed in a closed suitcase! Meaning, someone had to open my suitcase and look through it to get my roundbrush. Someone being my boyfriend's stepfather.

I was so shocked I didn't know what to say. It was probably the creepiest thing I had experienced in my 18 years of living. It's not that I had anything scandalous in there--just some swimsuits and shorts and tshirts--I was much more low maintenance at this point in my life--but it still felt incredibly invasive. In fact, I think it was creepier because I had nothing scandalous in there so he was getting his jollies off some lip gloss, khaki shorts, pastel tshirts and just plain cotton underwear (like I said--I was much more low maintenance back then).

The worst thing about it though, is that the stepfather was completely unapologetic, as if it was completely normal to go through your son's girlfriend's things. He just looked at me and said "what's this?". My hairbrush, I told him. Oh. And then nothing, but not an awkward nothing that would suggest my boyfriend or his mom thought the stepdad was creepy, just an everyday occurrence nothing.

I told the boyfriend that I was hungry and wanted to go down to the boardwalk for lunch RIGHT NOW. After that, I started locking my suitcase in the car when we left the condo. I'm sure it looked weird as hell, but not nearly as weird as his perv stepdad sniffing my underwear. Besides, it was almost the end of the week anyways so I only had to do this two or three times.