Today I’m going to talk about the word “twink,” how I learned what that is, and how one of the biggest regrets of my life is all tied up in a story that involves a bunch of twinks.
To start with, I can already separate everyone reading this into two groups. One group is asking themselves what the fuck I’m talking about. That group may or may not enjoy this story. The other group is probably pretty intrigued right about now though...
Anyways. I’m not gonna tell you what a twink is. But, picture this…
It’s seventeen years ago. I have hair. I weigh a little bit less and I don’t drink whiskey. I’m in Orlando at the tail end of a very exhausting conference with a coworker who we’re going to call “Bob.”
Bob and I are tired. It’s Friday and it rained every damn day of this conference. We are ready to leave this hotel and take our plane ride home but our flight has been delayed. So we’ve checked out of the hotel and we’re sitting in the lobby waiting for an airport shuttle. We aren’t really talking, we’re both just…tired.
Slowly, however, I’m starting to notice something. There are lots of young men wandering around. Lots of young men checking into the hotel. There are gaggles of young men and they are everywhere.
Then a new gaggle of men walks into the lobby and, as they pass by Bob and me, yell out in perfect synchronicity: TWINK!
Bob and I are startled and glance at each other but the four guys just keep on walking by us to go to the front desk as if they didn’t just yell out nonsense at the top of their lungs.
Thirty seconds later it echoes off the walls: TWINK!
And then the gaggle of guys has surrounded us. The loudest one looks between the two of us and sizes us up in a heartbeat. I’m a young 20-something nerd in a wrinkled polo, some khaki dad shorts (even then I was stylish!) who is ready to be back home to see his girlfriend. Bob is early 40s, similarly wrinkled, and very ready to go see his wife and kids. We are very white, very straight, and very out of place.
“Hi!” the ringleader says as they come around to face us and keep an eye on the front desk. The front desk that’s starting to develop a line of young men with a panicked young lady behind it. There are maybe 40 human beings in eyeshot, and the only one with ovaries is the very harried worker at that front desk. The ringleader has a Cheshire cat grin if I’ve ever seen one.
“Are you guys here for the weekend?” Before I can respond he points and yells.
“TWINK!”
His three friends echo him and laugh and nudge each other, eyeing us with twinkles in their eyes. The leader, like nothing has happened, comes back to us. “So...are you?”
Bob looks a little poleaxed. Honestly, I’m a little poleaxed too...though I think I’m starting to vaguely remember there’s a certain weekend every year at Disney that a couple of my friends might have mentioned. Friends who, I might add, neglected to ever teach me the meaning of the word “twink.” Thanks, friends.
So, I’m a little flustered and I’m a little worried about Bob too. I’m beginning to wonder about his cardiac history.
So I try to deflect. “What is that you keep yelling?”
“What? Twink?”
“Yeah...that.”
“Oh, honey. One second and I’ll show you.”
Sure enough, like clockwork, he points at a dude who’s walking across the lobby. He is skinny. He has no body hair. Or muscles. Or clothes! All he has on is a very tiny, very pink, speedo. He’s on his way to the pool I guess.
“That’s a TWINK, honey!” (The twink ignores him with lofty dignity.)
Ah.
Well now I know. And now the guy is looking at Bob.
“You know, you’re a sexy bitch!”
Bob, dear Bob, does it exactly right.
“Well, my wife certainly thinks so.”
Nailed it. Still a little worried about that cardiac history though.
So we chat. All four of them have flown from Minnesota. TWINK! They are here for the weekend and this is their third trip down to Disney. TWINK! It’s their second time in this hotel, this hotel is great. It has a great pool. Did we check it out? No? What kind of “computer stuff” do we do? Isn’t that boring?
TWINK!
And then my moment comes.
He gives me a smoldering look. “Hey, you’re a pretty sexy bitch too!”
And I screw it up. I say something self-deprecating like “you have horrible taste” or something like that. Honestly, I don’t even remember. I’ve blocked out my failure. He looked slightly disappointed I didn’t react more strongly and thirty seconds later we see our shuttle and we’re walking out the door with our luggage. As the doors close behind us I hear one final chorus of TWINK!
2 minutes after that in the shuttle, it hits me. “SONOFABITCH!” I mutter. Bob looks at me in confusion.
It all fell into place. I’ve got my snappy comeback now. It would have been great. The rest of the group would have grinned and laughed at the leader. They would have ooh’d and ahh’d at my cleverness. I would have been the subject of a story for the whole weekend, the nerd that got the best of them. I just knew it.
When he called me a sexy bitch what I should have done was look him up and down and said “oh, honey, I don’t think you could handle me.”
Perfect. Two and a half minutes too late. One of the biggest smartass opportunities I’ve ever had with a stranger and my stupid brain was just too slow.
Anyways, I carry this regret around with me. It’s Pavlovian. Every time I hear “twink” I cannot help but revisit this failure and today I heard the word and I sighed and I remembered. Seventeen years ago and still there is this crushing disappointment. Disappointment and a vivid...very vivid...understanding of what a twink is.
Such is life.
