The first time I had sex education in school was in fifth grade. My teacher, Mr. Craig, hated kids. At recess, he used to take out his golf clubs and drive balls at us. When we got unruly, he threatened us with a paddle that he called "the Board of Education." Yes, he was mean and unoriginal.

Which made him the perfect person to introduce young and impressionable minds into the most mysterious topic there is.

As confusing and scary as that topic was at that age, there was nothing quite like getting sex education from a man who was going through a painful divorce and frequently came to school reeking of alcohol. At this time, I could barely comprehend how relations between a man and woman could create a baby. But how sex could also cause the man to have to move out of his home and lose half of his belongings was completely beyond me.

Sex education started with all the girls being summoned out of the class to watch a movie. We had no idea why the girls got to leave the class to see a movie when we boys had to stay in the room and stay still and quiet under Mr. Craig's threat of grievous bodily injury. None of the girls would talk about the movie and one even came back crying. I think this event drove a wedge between the boys and girls and may somehow explain why women can't belong to Augusta National.

One day, all the boys got summoned out of the classroom, leaving the girls behind. Finally vindication, we thought. Perhaps a screening of Caddyshack? Instead, we were summoned into the boys' room and told to stop throwing wet wadded up toilet paper on the ceiling.

Eventually, the boys and girls all got to see a sex education movie together. Basically the movie warned us that in a few years our bodies would stage a coup against us. We'd sprout hair in weird places, get bad skin, and probably spend most of our free time during the ages of 13-16 in the bathroom.

My memory of this movie is a little clouded because I get it mixed up with the only other movie that I remember from school, Decade of Death: 10 years of Highway Fatalities, that they showed in drivers' ed. In my mind, these movies run together seamlessly becauase they both featured blood, gave me nightmares, and tried to educate through fear.

On the last day of sex education, Mr. Craig invited the class to anonymously write down questions and put them in a hat. He would read the questions and respond, protecting our privacy.

Or so I thought.

I didn't realize it at the time, but Mr. Craig had been reading our handwriting all year long. So he knew exactly who wrote each question.

My question was, "How does sexual intercourse occur?"

Mr. Craig read the question aloud and looked directly at me when he answered. The whole class knew that he thought that it was the stupidest question he'd ever heard. He wondered how I could ask such a question after weeks of movies, charts, and lectures. In my defense, he threw a lot of information at us in a short period of time and I kinda lost the forest for the trees. I could've done without the public humiliation. A simple "insert Tab A into Slot B" would have sufficed.

I ended filling in the blanks with late night Cinemax movies and Prince songs.

That bout sums it up. I don't think I did too bad though. That is why communicate with my son now....and hide the Prince albums