[ Ben casts his mind back, for a story that will be funny - outright funny, not tinged at all with anything grim or depressing or messed up. A lot of the embarrassing stuff he had said as a kid had come from being ignorant and isolated and abused and not really having a sense of what was normal. A lot of it, in retrospect - stories he can still laugh about with his siblings - is majorly fucked up.

But he hits upon a story that will work, one that is completely harmless, and similar enough to Peter's story that it connects, in a way. His face lights up, and he begins: ]

I must've been, like, five? We got a lot of stuff delivered to the house, and we didn't go out much at that age so it would be like such a big event to sneak to the back door and get a look at whatever strangers were bringing, like, groceries or soap or cigars. It got to be where we recognized a lot of the guys who would make the deliveries and it was always the same one who brought produce. This older dude. He might not have even been that old - maybe fifty or sixty, but that seemed ancient. And then one day there was somebody new. He was maybe college age? Who knows.

[ Ben can feel his face getting hotter, but he'd committed to telling an embarrassing story and so he's just going to have to live with it. The truth gas is certainly ensuring that he doesn't leave any details out, even if he would prefer to. ]

Anyway he had this really long hair and I'd never seen a guy with such long hair before, and he was honestly pretty cute. The second time he came instead of the old guy, I asked if it was a permanent thing, and he said this was his delivery route now. And I uh. I might've asked him if he'd replaced the other guy and gotten his job because he wasn't so old and ugly.

[ He gives a little shrug, explaining: ]

I didn't know how jobs worked! I didn't get why he thought it was so funny! It seemed like a valid question at the time!