08
FF
05
42
99
09
16
FF
16

My former manager called me nymphet and screened the Kubrick version for me, so of course I had to read it. My reaction was not appropriate for someone who’d also read Backlash (feminism hadn’t been co-opted by Victoria’s Secret yet): it was cute. It explained my make-out sessions with that record store manager. Maybe I would find the man of my dreams! I didn’t aspire to be “on-line” in my barely legal era; I acted on suggestion. What could be problematic in using a screen name like “nymphet”? People—strangers—could find you and that seemed interesting. Or fun maybe? Flattering in theory. Except that guy in California who wanted my number for a 976-flavored conversation—not flattering. At this point “bunbury” began to seem like a more sensible option. Before I acted on that instinct, a local guy contacted me and visited me at my crap service job. He bought me a hideous T-shirt, telling me he’d considered buying me a pair of underpants instead. He said “panties,” though, a word I like as much as I like “moist.” That was it, new screen name notwithstanding. I stayed offline—the hyphen now passé—until 2001 after filing for divorce from the man of my dreams. Neither clever nor cute that email address. I’d grown up.

Purshia Adams is a writer based in Idaho and is a bona fide native of that state.