"Michael, come with me," commanded my father. I blinked, got up from my homework, and followed him. We walked into the family TV room.

"Sit down."

I sat down.

He turned on the TV and VCR. With steady hands, he carefully inserted a video cassette into the VCR and switched to channel three.

"Now watch this."

I nodded.

He left the room and shut the door. I watched him leave and blinked again. What in the world is going on? I wondered. Did I do something wrong?

I was a good kid growing up. At the time, I was still in junior high school. Seventh grade, I think it was. I always did my homework, got good grades, and respected my parents. I couldn't think of a reason why my father would act this way.

Then the show started.

A bunch of cartoon bunnies appeared. They started talking about sex. Two cartoon bunnies hopped into bed and the cartoon male bunny pulled out a cartoon bunny condom. Then they started humping.

Later, they got married and they hopped into bed again after their honeymoon. This time, the cartoon male bunny didn't use a cartoon bunny condom.

A close-up of a cartoon bunny penis appeared. It was a diagram to portray the inner workings of the penis. Then a close-up of a cartoon bunny vagina appeared, also in full diagramic glory.

As the cartoon bunnies humped in bed, little cartoon bunny sperm raced towards a cartoon bunny egg. They were smiling and had little cartoon bunny ears. One of them won and it shouted, "Yippeee!".

The cartoon female bunny's stomach grew large. Then dozens of cartoon baby bunnies popped out of her, all smiling with big floppy cartoon bunny ears.

"And that," stated the show's announcer, "is where babies come from." Which I knew already because I learned about it half a year ago at school.

The show ended. I got up, ejected the tape, and walked out of the room.

My father was sitting at the kitchen table reading a newspaper. I approached him and handed him the tape. "Thanks," he said as he took the tape. Then he returned to the newspaper. I don't think he was reading it because he had it turned to a page full of ads. Plus, it was upside-down.

I walked back to my room and saw my dad glance at me from my peripheral vision.

We never spoke of this incident ever again.

. . .

How did you learn about the birds and the bees?