Fourth grade. Miller’s basement.

“Look,” Miller says. We’re sitting at his desktop computer. He logs into the server and pulls up Google. What he typed in next changed my life.

“B-U-T-T-S.”

The screen was suddenly full of butts. Rotund, marble buttocks of Grecian statues. Pale plumber’s cracks peeping out from the tops of jeans. Butts in bathing suits. Butts in khaki pants.

And a lingering image of a politician. Not a naked one. Just a headshot.

Miller looked at my hanging mouth. “Isn’t that crazy?”

Miller was my friend who lived down the street. At nine, he was already like 5’10”, skate-boarded, and had had a “girlfriend.” We were in Boy Scouts together and had the same group of friends. He was too loud and too crass for me—nine-year-old Danny was a total prude—but he had video games, and I loved being Princess Peach in Mario Kart (? Maybe? I don’t know. Some game like that), and this was just the next level in our friendship.

Apparently aside from allowing me to engage in digital drag, Miller was also going to be the one to introduce me to porn.

After looking through the images of naked butts, I had to go home, probably for dinner or to color or do math homework or something.

In the next few days, my curiosity about this new, sparkling world grew. So one day after school, when no one was home, I sat down on the cracked-leather green cushion of the rolling desk chair and steered myself in front of our massive desktop computer in the TV room.

I pulled up Google and stared at the blank white space in front of me, with the pulsing black bar at the beginning of the empty search engine. Finally, I gathered up the courage to type out three simple, life-altering words.

“Paris. Hilton. Topless.”

I don’t really know why Paris was the first person that came to my mind. This was 2004, which is what I like to think of as probably the peak of Paris Hilton’s relevancy. Over ten years later, I know more about her aunt Kyle Richards—of RHOBH fame—than I do about her. Although I know that her dog Tinkerbell just died. So RIP to Tink, I suppose.

But it was Paris whose name and boobies I witnessed on that fateful afternoon. It would be years before I watched her sex tape(s), so for the moment it was just a handful of pictures of Paris topless at a pool and the very scandalous pictures of her topless and kissing another girl.

At nine, seeing anyone’s naked body was revolutionary, so don’t worry if you think this means that I’m secretly straight and playing gay for the attention. That’s not why I’m playing gay. I’m doing it for the book deals. And the boys’ booties.

I did several different variations to look up nudes. “Paris Hilton topless.” “Paris Hilton boobs.” “Nicole Richie boobs.” I had little-to-no pop culture knowledge—an embarrassing secret that I have more than made up for in the years since—so I only really knew of Paris and Nicole from their show “The Simple Life.”

Side bar: that’s a great show.

This went on for two days.

My parents went out to dinner, and my sister Margot came into my room, where I was cutting out paper dolls and coloring in their skirts. I am only slightly embarrassed of this.

“Why were you looking at naked pictures on the computer?” Margot inquired. I jolted, and looked into her hazelly-green eyes, which were searing back into mine from behind—frankly—unflattering glasses.

I briefly contemplated playing it cool before cracking. “How do you know that?”

“It’s on the search history,” Margot rolled her eyes, overcome with disgust at my ignorance. A decade later, not much has changed.

“What is the search history?”

Margot dragged me down to the TV room and clicked open a tab on the computer. In that tab was the evidence of my softcore Internet meanderings. “It all stays on the computer?” I whimpered.

The Internet had betrayed me. Up until this point, the Internet had been my friend. It had allowed me to play car chase games and visit Club Penguin. Now it was the humming reminder that I was—in my mind—a grade A pervert.

“How do I get rid of it?” I asked frantically.

“I know how to do it,” Margot answered. At twelve years old, she was full of superior computer skills.

“Can you do it for me? Please?!” I begged her.

Margot considered this for a second. I waited.

She looked at me. I looked at her.

“Give me your sour Skittles,” she said finally.

“Deal.”

One bag of sour Skittles later, Margot was erasing the evidence of my curiosity from the computer.

Margot held our shared secret over my head for the next few years. She blackmailed me into giving her the remote, the better seat in the car. Until I got my own computer and discovered how to mass delete Google searches, I remained firmly under her pink-glitter Claire’s Boutique thumb.

Miller and I drifted apart, as he went—presumably—into hard drugs and I dealt with being gay. Margot remained kind of a bitch. And I kept Paris Hilton close to my heart.

Eventually I branched out into actual porn, and began to prod at my burgeoning homosexuality with the timid eagerness of a foal learning to walk on awkward, stilting legs. By the time that I was thirteen, I was a master at both finding and deleting gay porn, so much so that I felt like I was on par with the world’s greatest computer hackers.

This was entirely a delusion, as I then downloaded a virus onto my laptop from a nefarious gay porn site. But all in the name of self-discovery, right?

Side bar: I really want those fucking sour Skittles back.

I regularly embarrass myself. When you’ve got as little self-awareness and as high self-confidence as me, that’s a given. But I really regularly embarrass myself.

Like the other day in the dining hall. I was sitting with my friend, and it was peak-dining hall hours. It was also a snow day, and because we don’t have a lot of TVs since we’re college students, everyone ends up eating.

I had asked my friend—let’s call her Shelby—to get me a drink when she was standing. I asked for iced tea.

She leaves. I probably perused Instagram or something of the similar ilk—as I was typing out “Instagram,” I got a notification about a new follower! Hint, @thedanosaurus, hint—or stalked cute boys on Facebook. Also, side note: cute boys, stop with the privacy settings. It’s really bumming me out.

Shelby comes back, carrying two glasses, one of water and one of iced tea. She sets the iced tea in front of me. Immediately, I sense in my psyche that something is not right in Whoville. The froth ratio is way off, and this liquid is a deep oak in color, instead of its usual burnished mahogany.

But I disregard this and take a sip. And immediately flip out.

“This is Brisk,” I tell Shelby. She looks at me, not understanding.

“Yes.”

“I asked for iced tea,” I hiss like a viper.

“That’s what I got you,” Shelby hisses back.

“No, you got me Brisk. If I had wanted Brisk, I would’ve asked for Brisk.” (I literally cannot use italics enough to adequately convey the amount of DRAMA I put into those words).

“You’re being crazy,” Shelby says.

“SUSAN, I ASKED FOR ICED TEA.” Susan is a throwback to Rich Kids of Beverly Hills, as the much put-upon mother of main character Morgan Stewart, aka my idol, aka my queen, aka my ass-spiration and aspiration.

Now, I know I sound crazy. But I swear I’m not. There is a clear distinction between Brisk (Brisk) and iced tea. Brisk comes from the soda fountain rack. Iced tea comes from the tall, brewed vats directly adjacent to the soda fountain rack. The one I use says “Unsweetened Tea” which is ironic because it is literally sweet tea. And that’s the tea I drink, just sweet enough to make your teeth ache but not sweet enough to make you look like you’re from the Appalachian backwoods—is that offensive—and it is delicious. Brisk is an abomination. Side note, I’ve been listening to a lot of Kanye West lately—it’s related, because he’s “the abomination of Obama’s nation” and also he’s good.

“You’re yelling right now,” Shelby reminds me. Thanks Shelby for the Amber Alert, but you’re the one who messed up.

“I don’t care! I’m divorcing you,” I shriek like a Fury—I’m reading Eumenides in my class, so I am all about the Furies right now—and start gesticulating wildly.

“I’m not the one who fucked up. I refuse to drink this,” and I gesticulate wildly at the glass. In my impassioned frenzy, I backhand the full glass of iced tea harder than Maria Sharapova in the 2006 US Open.

The entire contents of the glass gush onto the table and waterfall over the edge. Shelby cackles like Kris Jenner, as I dry-heave with embarrassment.

The carpet beneath us is soaked, and Shelby drops a single napkin over the mess before sitting back and watching me. I start wiping up the mess, fully aware that I was acting as psychopathic as a guest on Maury.

“I hope you’re know that you’re a crazy person,” Shelby says as she watches me mop up the liquid, the sodden mess of napkins growing exponentially. Once the Brisk—that accursed “beverage”—is gone, we sit in silence. I have ceased cry-laughing.

Side bar—was I dating myself with the Maury reference? Also side bar, since I’m so alone, I’m technically always dating myself. Solo high-five…because no one will touch me.

The rest of the lunch passes in a haze of murky embarrassment. Shelby spends the next few days reminding me of the “iced tea incident”—loudly and with great zeal—to all of our friends.

I should add that I was partially kidding about being so upset about the iced tea. I should also add that I was partially deadly serious about being so upset about the iced tea. I’m very particular, and I really don’t think that’s a bad thing. If I were Oprah, would anyone call me “psychotic” and “over-dramatic” for demanding a certain kind of iced tea? I didn’t think so, unseen audience member.

I didn’t think so.