As with any normal relationship in bloom, we experienced the highs and lows that go hand in hand with the decision to share your life with someone. We spent the summer of '83 together, which grew more challenging due to the increase in the temperature. There were many times I was tempted to walk away, but I always came back when the sun went down. In hindsight it was easier to stay in the relationship than to jump back into the dating scene. With my invisible friend, Lucy, acting as officiator, my coslopus and I had a commitment ceremony where we vowed to be faithful, even though cheating on me would have been impossible for her, considering she was attached to my groin.

It wasn't until Thanksgiving dinner in fourth grade that I was confronted about my romance. My parents had invited some family friends over, along with my five brothers and sisters. I was still in a honeymoon period with myself and didn't take a Thanksgiving dinner seriously enough to not bring my gentleman caller. I had a wooden soup spoon under the table in between my legs, over my corduroys, pursuing my usual enterprise. After several beads of sweat dripped into my pumpkin soup, my father yelled out in front of the whole table, "Chelsea! Stop what you're doing right now!"

Then my mother chimed in. " Chelsea, that is something you want to do in the privacy of your own room."

My brother Ray took this as his cue to announce, "She does it all the time!"

The idea that what I'd been doing to myself for the past year and a half had not been a secret by any stretch of the imagination came as a shock to me. I couldn't believe I'd been outed. I was mortified, sabotaged, and, worst of all, forced to spend the rest of elementary school ignoring my lover and her pitiful attempts to reconcile. Once it was established that it was not acceptable behavior, I had no desire to do it. No remorse. No breakup letter. No counseling. Just cold turkey. "Au 'voir," I told my coslopus that night before reading my newest issue of Highlights magazine, which I had started subscribing to at the age of three.