Dum dum dum dum dum

I am going to break one of the cardinal unwritten rules of LoserEx by writing about another contributor’s ex. MEL dated ‘Craig’ a little while back, and found him to be a bit whiney and a bit clueless. I was fortunate enough to witness one of his moments.

We were all over at someone’s house one night drinking beer when Craig graced us with his vast knowledge of nutrition. Someone went to the kitchen to get some chips, and upon bringing them back, offered some to Craig. Craig declined, and remarked that he would not eat any chips because, beer has empty calories, and if he ate chips, they would become full calories, and he would gain weight. Dumbass honestly thought that he could drink himself silly every night, but if he did not eat during the time in which he was drunk, he would never gain weight from excess calorie consumption. We were all too dumbfounded by this to even bother correcting his logic. Needless to say, he went on to gain a bit of weight, which MEL can tell you all about.

You say it's your birthday.

My birthday is on Monday. When my friend Lauren asked what I wanted to do for my birthday, I told her I wanted to have a one-night stand. This was funny because I am so NOT the type to actually have a one-night stand, but it made me think about my past few birthdays and how the men in my life have chosen to commemorate them.

2003: My boyfriend at the time (who, coincidentally is my boyfriend now...long story) decided to break up with me five days before my birthday (over something stupid), then decided we should get back together the night before my birthday (which was a great birthday present), then took me to Pittsburgh to celebrate (not romantic, but halfway between Washington--where I lived--and Northern Ohio--where he lived), and then dropped off the face of the earth for a year immediately following that weekend.

2004: The man responsible for my having a good birthday had to work so my friends took me to the racetrack where I got shitty on dollar dogs and drafts and lost some money on dollar bets. Then I went to Minneapolis and got even shittier at the clubs downtown. But at least he took me shopping the next day and bought me every little obscure thing on my list, so I was happy.

2005: My birthday was on a Sunday and Dumdum had to work on Saturday. So Friday (which was our only night to take me out and get me shitty), he and one of his friends get positively shitcanned while I'm at work, forcing me to drive his drunk ass home. Then on my actual birthday we had to go hang out with his parents because there was some stupid horse race and Dumdum couldn't function if he wasn't up his father's ass. So I got shitty on Bloody Marys and acted like a complete heinous bitch to everyone and made my own fun. Hey--at least I got some David Yurman earrings out of the deal though.

2006: My boyfriend decides the Brigade Ball with the dudes (I did not get an invite) is way more important than my 25th birthday and tells me "we'll celebrate your birthday sometime, babe". And yes, he knows what a big deal my birthday is to me--I've only been sending out countdowns for the past 90 days.

Maybe I'll have that one-night stand after all...and if I don't get at least two dozen long-stems AND some expensive jewelry, he's history. (I'm serious about the roses.)

What I don't understand is I make it pretty clear to everyone when my birthday is, what I want to do for it, and what I want to get FAR in advance. I don't understand why the men in my life always seem to fuck it up. IT'S ONE DAY AND I GIVE YOU EXPLICIT INSTRUCTIONS! It's not that complicated.

It all adds up to nothing.

Shrek had a friend. A female friend. Who was like a sister to him (which is funny because he loathed every one of his female relatives). Anyway, little whiney sister needed a math credit. Actually, big fat asshole did as well, but I'll get to that. Ok, so little whiney sister needed a math credit, and she was too scared to take a big hard math class all by her little self, so she talked Shrek into taking a stats class with her. I never heard the end of what a good friend he was to take this class with her, because he was so good at math. Afterall, he was the captain of his Quiz Bowl team, which placed second to last in the state. He went on and on about how easy this class was for him, but how he was taking it to help out his darling little sister. This annoyed the hell out of me, because I knew that he needed the math credit anyway, and that he was not as damn smart as he kept trying to convince me.

Two years later, me and Shrek have had our drawn-out, dramatic parting. He calls to say he has some of my stuff at his place still, and asks if he can bring it over. I tell him "hell no," and that I will send some people to collect my belongings. My friends return from the darkside with boxes that he has haphazardly thrown items in, and include both my stuff and his. I am annoyed as hell that he is trying to dump his stuff on me. But, since he gave it to me, I figure it is my right -- no -- responsibility to go through it all.

One box has a few notebooks at the bottom, some are mine, and one is his. I go through his notes to see what the ogre even writes down in class, and stumble across an old test tucked between the pages. It is a stats test. From that really easy stats class that he took with whiney little sister. More importantly, it is a stats test which he failed.

Ok, when I said he failed the test, that was a gross understatement. I'm not sure if there is a word for failing epically, but if there is, that is the word I want to use to describe this test. I read through the test, and the answers he gives are out-of-this-world bad! For example, there is a fill-in-the-blank section in the beginning in which a few definitions are given, and the test-taker is to fill-in the word which is being defined. Every single one (there were 8 of them) had the word "statistics" filled in. This was not the correct answer to any of the questions. It only went downhill from there. There was nothing right on this test. It looked like someone had filled it out poorly as a joke. I would have suspected this had it not been graded.

For awhile (during the time we were dating), I wondered how he was failing out of school, since he seemed to think all his classes were too easy for him. He apparently didn't have to try, and got A's on everything. I never saw how this was possible, seeing as one does not fail out of college for getting a 4.0. After seeing this test, it all became clear that he was lying about yet another thing. More importantly though, it all became clear that, contrary to his claims, I am much smarter than he will ever be. I am willing to bet that whiney little sister who can't figure out basic math did better in this class than he did.