Flasher Magnet

My younger sister is a flasher magnet.

I don’t know if it’s because she’s small, because her blue eyes and freckles make her look innocent and easily shocked, or some other less tangible quality, but she’s seen upwards of a dozen anonymous penises in her life.

In fact, the only two times I’ve been flashed, I was with her.

The first time, I was a senior in high school and she was in sixth grade. Her middle school was a quarter mile beyond my high school, and we’d just crossed Hedges Street when a man in a white Corvair pulled up to the stop sign behind us.

“Hey, can you tell me how to get to Terry Street?” he called from his car.

Our parents had recently owned a house on Terry (they used to flip houses in the 60’s, before it became trendy), so I had a general idea. I stepped up to the passenger side window and was describing how to get there when suddenly Robin starts yelling, “You’re sick! You make me sick!”

I turned around to see what the heck was going on, and she’s standing there, pointing toward the car. Following the trajectory from the end of her finger, my eyes came to rest on what seems, in memory, a flesh-colored object roughly the dimensions of the Washington Monument.

I said, “Oh, gross” and walked away.

A number of years later, we were sitting in a Taco Bell, enjoying a round of Nachos Bell Grande, when she suddenly leapt from the booth and headed for the counter, yelling, “That’s it. I’m getting the manager.”

I looked around in time to see a middle-aged guy with greasy, thinning hair dump the remains of his tray into the trash and head out the door.

Those are my only two incidents; for her, there have been many more. She insists that I’ve probably been flashed as often as she has, and just didn't notice.

She could be right.