To paraphrase Jane Austen, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a parent in possession of children who have become independent must be in want of a purpose.” I have two boys, one in college, the other headed there soon. Both boys are largely independent and exploring the world on their own. I now see my purpose as a parent as that of imparting wisdom—sharing those pearls that I’ve managed to collect along the path of my life—which I can give to them as though passing along a treasured possession or a coveted family heirloom. Yesterday I had such an opportunity.

As my younger son was leaving for school, I asked him if he had enough money for dinner. On that day, he had band practice in the evening so he was going to stay at school and eat with friends in town. He dutifully checked his wallet and relayed the amount.

“Is that all you have?” I asked. While it was more than enough for dinner, I had sudden images of friends unable to eat because they had forgotten money and my son unable to spring for their meals. “You should always carry more money than you need,” I advised. “Don’t you remember the lesson of the sex show?”

“WHAT?!?” he asked, clearly shocked.

“Didn’t I share with you the lesson of the sex show?” I asked, suddenly feeling uncomfortable.

“NO!” he practically shouted, clearly still aghast.

Oh no, I thought. I could have sworn that I had told my sons the story. I suddenly realized this tale from my youth had remained buried, and more than likely for good reason, but since I had uncorked that bottle, I had no choice but to pour. That night, when he returned home, I told him the story.

When I was in high school, our junior class took a trip to England. When we got to London, my two buddies and I couldn’t wait to be released out into the city because we were in a place where we could legally drink beer! As we waited for the word from our English teacher that we were free to go, one of my friends whispered that we should go to a strip show. Why not, we thought. We were young men on the cusp of the rest of our lives, about to be set free in one of the greatest cities in the world. We could finally experience the life of grownups that had been hinted to us in movies. While we waited to be released, we grabbed our copy of “England on $5 a Day” and quickly looked up the seediest part of London that the guidebook said tourists should avoid. At the whistle, we were off.

We found the area of the city, and it was just like the movies: dirty; shady characters; storefronts with strange objects that we had a hard time imagining their use or where they might fit in the human body; pink neon invitations that hinted at all sorts of lurid and exciting experiences. As we stood huddled, wondering where to go, a man approached us, a man in a long trench coat, just like in the movies.

“You lads interested in a show?” he asked us.

“Sure!” we replied, unable to believe our luck. We had gone out hunting for a strip show and the show had found us. “Wait,” one of us asked. “How much to get in?” We were, after all, on a budget. We didn’t have enough for both a big cover charge and the beer.

“Nothing,” he replied. “No cover.”

We could not believe our good fortune.

We followed the man off the main road, onto a side street, and into an alley. It was just like the movies! We entered a nondescript building and found ourselves in a dimly lit hallway. We passed through heavy black curtains at the far end and found ourselves in a large room with booths on two sides. The man handed us off to a woman, scantily dressed but far older than her clothes suggested, who seated us in a booth.

It was only when seated that we noticed that the center of the room contained nothing except for a bare mattress, right on the floor. Off to one side, partially hidden by a curtain, was a woman, nearly naked, applying makeup. Next to her stood a man, also largely unclothed. We suddenly had the unsettling feeling that something was off.

Our attention was involuntarily pulled when the woman who seated us asked if we would like a beer. “Yes, please,” we said, relieved that at least that part of the experience was what we had expected. We exchanged glances while we waited, each wondering if the other was feeling the same uneasiness.

The woman returned with the beers and then asked if she could join us. I recall that I was sitting on one end of the booth and that she had spoken directly to me. I said yes to be polite but indicated that there was more room for her at the other end of the booth, next to my friend. I swear, it was an instinctive reaction; I had not intended to sacrifice my friend to the company of this woman, but I just did not want her near me.

She immediately sensed our reluctance to have her join our party, so she asked, “How would you gentlemen like to buy a lady a drink?”

That question was somewhat of a relief as it was in our realm of understanding: it was math, and an easy question to answer. We didn’t have much money, and buying some random older woman a drink had not been factored into the budget.

“W-well,” one of my friends stammered, “we really don’t have money for that.”

“Really,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “Well I think you gentlemen are being rude. Hey,” she called across the room, “these gentlemen are being rude.”

From out of the shadows emerged a beast of a man wearing the expression of someone who did not appreciate being bothered. He came to our table and stopped next to the woman.

“These men here,” she said. “They don’t want to buy me a drink. They say they don’t have the money. Why don’t you tell them how much their beers cost.”

The man looked at our three beers and seemed for a moment to be struggling with the calculation. Finally he spoke, a very deep voice. “That’ll be seventy quid.”

Seventy?!? Mind you, this was 1987. At the time, one pound sterling was worth almost two US dollars. Our tab was nearly $140. And the big man’s stance made it clear that we would be paying, either out of our pockets or out of our hides.

We went white. One friend quickly pulled out a ten pound note and stared at it as though he could will the denomination higher. The other fumbled around in his pocket, trying to get hold of all the coins. We were doomed.

But then I felt a spark of hope, one generated from a pearl of wisdom that I myself had been handed from a grownup. We had been told over and over by our English teacher to keep our money safe. He had warned us about pickpockets and thieves, slinking around the street shadows, so practiced they could swipe a wallet from our pockets as easily as if it had been left behind on a restaurant table. As a matter of fact, we shouldn’t even leave our money in our hotel rooms as who knew what the cleaning staff might do. It was a dangerous, terrifying world, at least in terms of someone swiping our saved allowances. Thankfully, I had taken this wisdom to heart: I had hidden all the money I had for the trip in my sock.

As my friends fumbled in panic to add up their few English banknotes and pence coins, I reached down, lifted my pant leg, and retrieved the full amount. I handed the money to the bouncer and we filed out of the booth as quickly as we could and raced for the exit. Only after we had retraced our steps and reached the main road did our relief to escape come bubbling out, our nerves and terror causing a jumbled mix of strained laughter, simultaneous retellings from our own points of view, and an overly quick pace straight back to the hotel. We talked like men of courage who had barely escaped death but knew in our hearts we were just three boys who had experienced something wholly unexpected, a slice of life that we were not meant to see, an arguably dangerous moment that had arrived due to our naïveté and innocence but that had passed thanks to chance and luck, and who had gained a life lesson that we might one day pass on to children of our own.

When I finished my story, my son looked at me like I was a total idiot.

“Dad, I think there are a few more lessons in that story than simply ensuring you leave home with enough money. How about avoiding seedy sections of towns? Not following creepy men in trench coats? Not following creepy men into alleys and buildings? Not—”

I cut him off there. My pocket only held so many pearls, and he was pulling them all out, putting me at risk of having nothing left to give. I also, I must admit, wanted to stop him from revealing that he too had collected pearls of his own, ones that threatened to devalue the few that I still carried. I gave him a hug, hoping that he had at least gained something of value from my story. He hugged me back, a young man on the cusp of the rest of his life, surprisingly wise and confident, a comfort I felt as strongly as the arms he had wrapped around me.