NASAL SPRAY

Sean Girling 1997 

            I was sitting there, in the Miami airport, waiting impatiently to board the plane.  I was nine.  My family was moving to Brazil, and I felt totally out of place.  I looked around listening to the confusion and watching millions of people running around frantically.  I was in an awkward situation already, and the confusion really started to scare me.  I remember sitting there just wishing that I could home ly8ng in my bed where everything would be safe.

            Finally, they called our flight number, and we started to board the plane.  As we walked down the tunnel to board, I heard people talking in a language that was foreign to me.  I soon learned it was Portuguese, the language that I would be speaking for the next few months.  I sat down in the window seat and just stared out the window, but it was too dark to see anything.  After quite a long time staring, looking for something to tell me I was fine, I looked up at my mom for some sort of reassurance, but she was busy cramming a backpack under the seat.  I looked back out the window mindlessly gazing at the lights on the wing of the plane next to us.

            “Hey, how are you doing, kiddo? asked my dad trying to cheer me up.  I looked up from the window and put on a shallow smile, saying,

            “I’m fine.”  I didn’t much want to talk to my dad about my real feelings.  He seemed too excited to be brought down by me.

            “Are you excited?”, he asked, showing that he was more eager to get there than a child waiting to get into Disneyland.

            “Yea, I guess?” I said trying really hard not to crack and start saying what I was really thinking.  Then he said what he had from three aisles away to say.

            “The family that is sitting next to me is wondering if I could trade seats with the father whose seat is in business class, so the family could sit together.  Would that be a problem with either of you?” He questioned my mom and me.

            My mom and I both said that it was fine, and walked back to his seat, got his stuff and disappeared behind the curtain that separates the first from second class citizens.

            The plane didn’t seem like it was about to take off, so I asked if I could get up and wonder around the aisles.  I squeezed past my mom and the middle aged Brazilian man who was sitting next to her.  As I was wondering around the plan, I saw mothers squirting some sort of liquid into their children’s noses.  It really freaked me out.  So I went back to ask my mom what these people were doing.  She told me that they were putting nasal spray in their noses.

            “Why aren’t you putting any in my nose?” I asked.

            “Because it just a silly thing that causes more harm than does good,” she told me.

            “Are you sure?”  It didn’t make sense that so many people would do something that was bad.”

            “Yeah, don’t worry about it, everything is okay,” she reassured me.

            At that point, I knew everything would be fine.  The rest of the flight was a blur, and when I got to Brazil everything was fine.

WHAT SHALL I BE? A HALLOWEEN STORY

1999

SEAN, thirteen, already six feet tall, 165 pounds and still growing. He didn’t look much like an 8th grader in middle school. His less mature friends were already asking him to buy beer at the corner liquor store. When it turned October 1, Sean was already thinking about costumes. That Thursday afternoon, he arrived home form school asking,

“Mom, could you take me to Buffalo Exchange to look for a Halloween costume?”

“What are you thinking about for a costume this year,” I asked?

“I’m going to be a hooker!” Sean announced emphatically.

Oh well, I thought to myself. It won’t be much use arguing with this thirteen year-old man-child. So we headed for Buffalo Exchange climbing the stairs to a large space over looking Telegraph Avenue just down the street from UC Berkeley.

Sean spotted baskets of wigs immediately. He strode over and snatched a long, hairy blonde wig, its curls pouring over the basket’s wicker edge. Then he pulled it over his own short blonde curls.

“Looks convincing,” I said. But he wasn’t listening. He had already started pawing through a rack of black dresses. Finally, he extracted a sequined sheaf iwht a deep V neck. The material looked flexible as he struggled to pull it over his t-shirt and jeans.

“Now, I need some stiletto heels,” he asserted.

There were boxes and boxes of shoes scattered across the shop floor beneath the clothing racks.

“I need about a size 12 and a half,” he exclaimed.

Good luck, I thought. Maybe a cross-dresser left his size 12 1/2 stilettos from last year.

Sean wasn’t having luck finding the heels to complete the outfit. Finally, he approached the sales desk asking the cashier where he could find a pair of black stiletto heels size 12 and 1/2?

“You’ll have to go to the Castro in San Francisco for that,” the clerk replied curtly.

Without hesitation, I assured Sean that I wasn’t taking him to the Castro to look for stiletto heels and promptly paid for the wit and dress.

On Halloween day, Sean worn his hooker costume to school, minus the stiletto heels. Instead he wore a pair of black laced up hiking boots. Heavy boots and dresses were already a thing girls were using back in those days.

I was curious what kind of reaction he’d get at school, but I knew better than to say anything as he left for school that morning. When he arrived home in the afternoon, he was;ked into my office announcing,

“Guess what Mom? “

“What?”

“I won first prize for the best costume!”

I didn’t ask whether or not he’d told everyone that he was impersonating a hooker. I knew that there were enough LBGT faculty at the school who would probably approve of cross dressed costumes. Maybe they swayed the voting? Or maybe the judges had the teenage sense of humor?

Since that time, Sean has dressed in many costumes, not just for Halloween. He’s not a cross dresser, however, Just out there and confident in his choices. He wore a beautiful pink suit when he and Kate married 25 years later.

Playing dress-up at Halloween is a thrill we should all indulge ourselves in. As a woman, I’ve never wanted to impersonate a hooker, but I decided to be a black cat for Halloween 2025. I’m hoping to trick or treat and score my used to be favorite candy bar, Three Musketeers. Do they even exist anymore? I intend to find out.