This evening, I met up with Marisa, an old high school friend of mine. Sometimes, no matter how different you become as adults, there are just some stories that can only be shared with old high school friends, so we did some of that. We also did some reminiscing about the good old days and got onto the topic of little sayings we have that other people don't get. Everyone has these with their friends, but, despite our fondness for other inside jokes (like "sugar wafer, sugar wafer, sugar wafer...chocolate mint?!?!"), we both agreed that we wish our word "light rod" would enter the common parlance. We both know exactly what a light rod is when we see one, and neither of us know any other word that so perfectly sums up these men. So, here, my attempt to explain "light rod", in the hopes you can get some use out of it.
First, we've got to go back...way back....to, say, 1992 or 1993. Picture it. Emerald Isle, NC. Two 16 year old girls with dad's car, a newly discovered fondness for rum based cocktails, and a Rob Bass tape. On those hot summer nights, we had three main objectives:
1. meet boys
2. find alcohol
3. conceal activities one and two from Marisa's slightly older brother, who was roaming the same hunting grounds on the small island.
Now, before you get the wrong idea, we were all talk on the boy thing (mostly), but we did meet a lot of them. This led to Marisa's dad's car being stolen, but that's another story. Plus, we got the car back and her dad never found out - he still doesn't know, so don't mention it. But anyway, it was the meeting the boys thing that led to "light rod." There was this one little stretch of road that the kids would cruise up and down, back and forth (because that's what we do as kids in NC), and we'd frequently see the same people. One such evening, we had the car pulled over but were still sitting in it, when we were approached by a guy we'd seen around several time. He approached me and began whispering something in my ear. Here's how it went down from my perspective:
Him: Blahblahblah LIGHT ROD blahblahblah
Me: Uh....What?
Him: Blahblahblah LIGHT ROD blahblahblah
Me: WHAT?
*at this point, much to my alarm, i started getting ear tongued. it was mercifully brief, but because I was in a parked car and he was leaning in the window, I had little chance of escape so he got one last chance to whisper to me.*
Him: BLAHBLAHBLAH! LIGHT ROD!! BLAHBLAHBLAH!
Me: Light rod?!?!
Him: (in disgust) Fine, be like that, be like that.
Me: Um, ok.
I still have absolutely no idea what he was saying to me - I wasn't trying to be mean to him. But with this exchange, involving the original (and still quintessential) light rod, a new category of men was born. The easiest way I can think of to describe to you what a light rod is to tell you that all members of Color Me Badd (pictured above) were light rods. Remember the Color Me Badd lyrics:
I'm so glad you're my girl, I'll do anything for you...Call you every night and bring you flowers too?Yeah, that is JUST what a light rod would say. It's not that girls don't like their boyfriends to be nice to them, but light rods are whiny, desperate for love and so "romantic" you need to take a shower - you kind of want to punch them in the face and steal their wallets. They're men who use lines. They're likely to have one of those little mustaches. If you come across a group of white male R&B fans, there's a good chance you've hit the light rod motherload.
You know, I give up. I don't think I could ever really explain to you exactly what a light rod is. Maybe you really did have to be there. All I can do is present to you this - light rods in action:
