About 6 years ago, I was up watching cable television at home one night after high-school basketball practice. A comedian named Jake Johanson was on and he was describing the process in which he went about buying condoms. Because he was shy, he was saying that he would buy a bunch of other larger things to surround the condom box with when he went through the checkout line. If the clerk asked about the hidden item, he would act surprised and say, "Oh those were in there? Just ring them through anyway." He then went into a funny dialogue about how he would probably have to buy tractor tires to hide the package when he got old enough that he needed adult diapers.

But I digress. When he told his joke about the condoms, I had laughed aloud. I was a junior in high-school and I had never even kissed a girl, but I was laughing at a situation that I could have no association to. Maybe it was his delivery.

Four years later, I was about to find out just what he was talking about. My roomate in college was in a campus group that educated students on informed and responsible sex. One of their responsibilities was to have condoms in their room and a sign on their door in case someone ever needed one. The theory was that it would be easier for a student to go to a peer than out to a pharmacy or drug store for their contraceptive.

Since my roommate didn't have a car and the largest drugstore was quite a ways off, I volunteered to accompany him on the condom run. I also figured it would be good for me to actually go through the process once.

Once we arrived at the huge store, it wasn't hard for us to find what we were searching for. Just as it is in almost every drug store, the condoms were all located right in front of the pharmacy windows. Upon finding their exact location, we walked toward then and then right by them into the aisle of vitamins. We called this action the "drive-by" and it was simply our way to see if there were a bunch of people standing around there and take a quick look at the different kinds they had.

After a bit of insincere gawking at containers ("do I have enough lysine in my diet?"), we decided that we were acting a bit goofy for college guys and walked right up to where they were located. At first, I was a bit staggered by just how many kinds there were to choose from. There were 3 packs, 6 packs, and 12 packs. There were non-lubricated, lubricated, lubricated with Nonoxidol-9, ribbed, latex, sheep-skin, flavored, and multi-colored. After picking up several different kinds and looking over their boxes inquisitively, we decided on three 12 packs (or "non-family" packs as we liked to refer to them) of lubricated Nonoxidol-9 latex condoms.

Having made our decision, we walked past the pharmacy counter (which was far less conspicuous) and headed for one of the express checkouts. We fell in line just after a middle-aged lady and an older guy stepped in just behind us. I put the three boxes on the small treadmill and watched as the first one made its way into the hand of the checkout guy.

Upon grabbing the first box, he seemed to be stuck in the monotony of his job and not paying attention. He scanned it through and then followed suit with the other two boxes. On his way to scanning the third box, a noticeable change took place and he looked up to see who had made the purchase.

My roommate and I were standing side by side grinning ear to ear as the checker blindly scanned the third box and rang up our total. My roommate pulled the money out of his wallet and paid. He grabbed the bag and we walked out of the store while giggling like little kids.

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