Say my name

I’m not going to lie – it kind of pisses me off when a guy I am dating cannot pronounce and spell my name correctly. I understand that I do not have the most common last name, but after 3 months of going out with me, he should really figure it out!

All it takes is paying attention to my outgoing voicemail message, calling me at work, looking at my e-mail address, reading my business card or JUST ASKING! Not that hard.

Even worse than someone not knowing how to spell my name is someone not knowing how to spell his own. I briefly dated a guy (same one who lied about where he went to school) whose middle name was Michael. He was born with this name, so the argument that it was new cannot be made. He was also in his 20s and not (to the best of my knowledge) retarded.

One day, he saw the name "Michael" written out somewhere and asked "oh, is that really how you spell it?" Um, yeah Dude.

I asked what other way he thought it was spelled. Apparently he got the "e" and the "a" mixed-up. At first I gave him the benefit of the doubt and thought maybe his parents are bad spellers and named him "***** Micheal", so I had him check his license. Sure enough, "***** Michael."

I honestly don’t know how he had gotten through life that long without knowing how to spell his own name. I mean, isn’t this something everyone knows how to do by kindergarten? Furthermore, you'd think he would have seen it SOMEWHERE before he reached his twenties.

It still blows my mind that he managed to not know how to spell "Michael" despite it being on his driver’s license, birth certificate, high school diploma, tax forms, voter registration, bank account and basically EVERYWHERE else. Dumbass.

Jailbird

My ex (the one who couldn't order wine), who I think I will call Clueless Ex from now on, was never exactly the most thoughtful person. When we went on vacation, he didn't book our room until about three days ahead of time, by which point there were no decent places to stay and we ended up in a crappy motel with uncomfortable beds. And then there was the time that he bought me a really nice earrings (really, they were gorgeous) for my birthday, but forgot that my ears weren't pierced. (He took me to get my ears pierced the next day, claiming that it was the second half of my present.) But this time, he really screwed himself over.

A few weeks ago, I got a call from a friend who was stuck in Bumfuck, Tennessee with Clueless Ex--because Clueless Ex was in jail! Apparently, while he was living in California (for about a year), he managed to get seven speeding tickets, none of which he paid. So, they suspended his license. I don't know if Clueless Ex didn't know this, or just didn't care, but whatever the reason, he was driving around with a suspended license. Well, he and some friends had gone up to Tennessee for a friend's bachelor party. Apparently, Ex acted like a dick the whole time they were there, but that's nothing out of the ordinary. On the way back home, he got pulled over and was arrested for driving with a suspended license. The thought of him in handcuffs makes me giggle like a little girl. The only thing that could have made it better was if they had kept him overnight.

While the whole idea of Clueless Ex being in jail fills me with glee, I think the more interesting part is the fact that he managed to forget to pay seven speeding tickets. I mean, who does that? How is it possible to forget to pay that many tickets? Or maybe he didn't pay them on purpose...did he think there wouldn't be any consequences? And also who gets seven speeding tickets in a year? I think that's a record. You would think that after about three tickets you would get the message that you need to slow your ass down. Tickets aren't cheap and neither is the inevitable increase in insurance (alliteration?) prices.

God, Clueless Ex is a dumbass.

Locked Out

I think that it's about time for me to make another Loser-Ex post. I don’t have too many stories to tell about my recent ex's because they have either been nice guys that I don’t really have any bad stories to tell or I didn’t date them long enough to have any stories other than just a description of their general douchey-ness. So I am going to share a story about a friend’s loser-ex.

Ok, now this friend is a sorority sister of mine and she is absolutely beautiful and deserves the very best. Well, I was dating a guy, let’s call him Fratty Ex, and I decided it would be really cute to set my friend up with his best friend so we could go on double dates. Well, I thought this guy was really nice and that he and my friend would be perfect together. He dressed really well, was from the best part of Houston, went to one of the best private schools in Houston, and was in the best fraternity on campus--all this was important to me at the time, I've since become less elitist. What I didn’t know was his habit of getting ridiculously, outrageously, insanely drunk.

Well, he and my friend had been out a few times and things seemed to be going well. So, she and I went with a group of friends out to a bar to meet up with him and his friends (this was a few days after Fratty Ex and I broke up, but he was back in Houston getting a root canal, so I wasn’t worried about running into him). Well, when we got there, he was already passed out on the bar. After a little while, my friend decided that he needed to go home. I was the driver that night, so I drove my friend and the loser-ex back to his house where she was going to put him in bed and then call me to come pick her up when she finished getting him calmed down. So far so good. I dropped them off and then went back to the bar. After about a half an hour, I checked my phone and saw that I had about ten missed calls from her. I went outside to call her back. When I got a hold of her, she told me that was hiding from the police behind a truck in a big pile of gravel. I went back inside the bar and collected a fraternity brother of his to come help me with whatever was going on. So, the fraternity brother and I drove over to the drunkard’s house (which was also Fratty ex’s house) and I called my friend again. By now, they were in the parking lot of the CVS nearby. I drove there and parked across the street and the fraternity brother and I walked over to the parking lot. When we got there, the guy was laying on the pavement covered in blood and my friend was standing over him crying. I started freaking out, thinking he was dead, but then he started moving. So I calmed down a bit. My friend then told me what had happened.

Well, after I had dropped them off, they were trying to get in the house, but the guy, in his drunkenness thought he didn’t have his keys (which it later turned out had been in his pocket the whole time). So, he decided to break a window instead, by punching his arm through it. Unfortunately, the house is a duplex and the landlord lives in the other half of the house, and he had gotten mixed up and broken the landlord’s window instead of his own. The landlord’s alarm went off and so the guy decided to run and my friend had to run after him. That’s how they ended up hiding in a pile of gravel. My friend told me later that while they were laying in the gravel, he kept trying to cuddle with her, while soaked in blood. And then they went over to the CVS parking lot, which is about when I showed up.

Well, my friend, the fraternity brother, and I were trying to get him up off the ground, but he kept yelling that he would only listen to Fratty Ex. As I said, Fratty Ex and I had just broken up and I really didn’t want to call him. I eventually gave up and called him at like 2 in the morning when he had had a root canal not twelve hours before. Fratty Ex (thankfully) told his friend to listen to me. After that it got a little easier. The three of us got him up off the ground and into my car. We drove over to their house, where there were about three police cars. The moment we pulled up at the house, the drunk friend sprang out of my car and ran into the backyard where he tripped and passed out. The fraternity brother ran after him and so my friend and I were left to deal with the cops by ourselves. My friend was crying and freaking out too much to talk, so basically I was the only one able to talk to the cops. The landlord was actually really cool about it, he was just happy that it hadn’t been somebody trying to break in. Well, the landlord wanted me to take the drunk guy to the hospital to get stitches. So, my friend, the fraternity brother, and I got the guy back into the car where he proceeded to bleed all over everything (to this day, I still have a six inch blood stain on the back seat of my car) and went to the emergency room. But once there, we could not get him out of the car. He simply latched onto the edge of my car seats and refused to move. After about 45 minutes we gave up and just drove him home.

The next day, he woke up and called my friend to ask why he was covered in blood.

Every rose has its thorn

The summer before I started college, I dated a "nice guy". He was nice--he had a job, he had a car and he could score beer from his older friends. What else does a girl need at 18? He wasn't exactly ambitious or particularly attractive but he probably had the best personality of any man I have dated--he was happy and funny and completely worshipped me. It was great.

To sweeten the deal, his parents had a time-share condo at the beach and he invited me on vacation with him. When you are 18, there is nothing better than a week at the beach. It wasn't a big condo so we would have to sleep on the pull-out couch in the living room, but other than going to dinner with the family a few times, we were free to do as we pleased. Everything was set for it to be the best summer ever.

That is, until we got to the beach and I realized that sleeping on the pull-out couch meant my suitcase stayed in the living room. And since the TV and VCR (this was when DVDs were still prohibitively expensive) were in the living room, as well as the door to the condo, people would be around my things all the time. This was before I was as meticulous (OCD) as I am now, but I made a real effort to repack my things every morning so I didn't make a mess in the common area.

One day, we returned from a morning of outlet shopping to find his mom and stepdad sitting on the couch watching TV. His dad was holding my round brush.

I should note that I had really short hair that summer. The day before graduation, I chopped my long hair to an earlobe-length messy/choppy style (this was about the same time Michelle Williams did it on Dawson's Creek). My stylist sold me a round brush for short hair that was more spherical than cylindrical--it sort of looked like a microphone with bristles.

I'll admit this brush was definitely interesting looking, but it had been packed in a closed suitcase! Meaning, someone had to open my suitcase and look through it to get my roundbrush. Someone being my boyfriend's stepfather.

I was so shocked I didn't know what to say. It was probably the creepiest thing I had experienced in my 18 years of living. It's not that I had anything scandalous in there--just some swimsuits and shorts and tshirts--I was much more low maintenance at this point in my life--but it still felt incredibly invasive. In fact, I think it was creepier because I had nothing scandalous in there so he was getting his jollies off some lip gloss, khaki shorts, pastel tshirts and just plain cotton underwear (like I said--I was much more low maintenance back then).

The worst thing about it though, is that the stepfather was completely unapologetic, as if it was completely normal to go through your son's girlfriend's things. He just looked at me and said "what's this?". My hairbrush, I told him. Oh. And then nothing, but not an awkward nothing that would suggest my boyfriend or his mom thought the stepdad was creepy, just an everyday occurrence nothing.

I told the boyfriend that I was hungry and wanted to go down to the boardwalk for lunch RIGHT NOW. After that, I started locking my suitcase in the car when we left the condo. I'm sure it looked weird as hell, but not nearly as weird as his perv stepdad sniffing my underwear. Besides, it was almost the end of the week anyways so I only had to do this two or three times.

The War on Tourism

I hate tourists. I hated tourists in college and I hate them even more now. They walk slow, stand on the left side of the escalator, ask me for directions to the Washington Monument despite the fact it is visible from where they are standing, and generally piss me off.

There is only one thing I like about tourists and that is their willingness to buy me a ton of drinks. I found out very quickly in college that I can get a group of three men in town for a business conference to buy my entire sorority drinks all night if I just flirt a little.

Stupid men always try to tag a local on their business trips. Haven't they figured out that we're on to them? I can't even begin to tell you how many times I have gotten tanked on top-shelf alcohol on some out-of-towner's tab, only to sneak out of the bar while he was in the bathroom.

It's a game (and a fun one at that). But, one thing that really pisses me off is when married men think that a business trip is their time to go cheat on their wives. In my last entry, I bitched about Beefcake's infidelity, but at least Beefcake wasn't married and pulling crap like this.

Last week I was at a bar with my sister and we had multiple married tourists hit on us. A few of them at least had the foresight to take off their wedding bands before coming to the bar (although when they kept touching their ring fingers, and had a tan line from where their rings were, it was kind of a giveaway), but one didn't even bother to do that.

With his damn wedding band on, he had the audacity to ask me "where are we going after this?" Of course, I told him "seeing as you're married, we're not going anywhere together." To which he responded something crass about a two-state rule. I looked him dead in the eye and told him he disgusted me.

I hope these wives wise-up to their husbands and divorce their asses and take all their money.

This is why I plan to have a fidelity clause in my pre-nup.

Somebody told me

I've said this a thousand times before, but it bears repeating: Washington men are douche bags. Let's call this week's offender "Beefcake."

I met Beefcake through some mutual friends at a bar one night. We ended up exchanging cards and he called me within two days to ask me on a date. We went out to dinner and then to a bar and things went pretty well. I even ignored my easy-out call (Confession: every time I go on a date I am unsure about, I have a friend of mine call me an hour in. If things aren't going well, I pretend that I need to leave immediately to attend to an emergency. If things are going well, I either let the call roll to voicemail, or answer and tell the caller that everything is OK.).

We went on a second date, and that's when I started to get annoyed. I felt like he was completely insincere and that everything he said to me was a line he had delivered to many dates before me. I was slightly skeezed-out by the whole situation. A few days later, I said something in passing about Beefcake to one of his friends.

The friend then mentioned something about Beefcake's girlfriend. My jaw hit the floor. I asked if he was absolutely sure that Beefcake had a girlfriend. He was. They had been dating for 8 months and the friend had seen them together the night before. I explained that I had gone out with him twice and definitly not as friends.

I couldn't believe what a fricking skeeze-ball Beefcake was.The next day, Beefcake called and asked if I wanted to go to dinner later in the week. I told him I would call him back, but never did. I didn't even want to ask about his girlfriend because I was so put-off by the whole situation. I refuse to be a part of Beefcake's harem. I just wonder how many other women he is dating on the side.

I hope they all meet and kick his ass.

Wash that man right out of my hair

In honor of Sanjaya getting kicked off American Idol last night, we figured we'd have an open forum on the hair sins of our many exes. If you want to discuss the hair sins of an ex, please feel free to contribute by emailing us your stories. Or post them in the comments. That works too.

PS I hated Sanjaya. His hair annoyed me.

CCG
I am pretty particular about hair. All hair, but since I don't date women, this post will only be about men's hair. I decided last night, while flipping through Cosmo and watching TV, that I only like men with low-maintenance hair. I don't like "chickenhead", I don't like men with long hair, I don't like men who use excessive products in their hair.

I pay $75 for a haircut. I use $25 shampoo and conditioner and designer straightening cream with my $150 flat iron. Let's not even talk about my highlights. But this is okay because my hair is gorgeous and I am a girl. I don't like girly men. A man should pay no more than $15 for a haircut. He should spend no more than 30 seconds doing his hair in the morning.

My preferred male hair look might just be bald. On the right body, a bald head is really hot (see also: Bruce Willis). It is also manly and I go for really masculine men. But if a man isn't going to go all the way, I like it as short and low-maintenance as possible (officer/gentleman has the best hair possible--he buzzes it at Ranger Joe's and then doesn't mess with it).

There hair sins of my exes are numerous: ponytails, bad coloring, excessive product use, waiting too long for a haircut. But generally speaking:

- No, your ponytail was not hot. Chicks did not dig you with long hair. I never knew you when you had a ponytail but judging from the fact that your hair is now sort greasy and corse, I seriously doubt the "I got out of the shower, put my wet hair in a ponytail that trailed down my back and got on my motorcycle" was a good look for you. Your hair probably had nasty trailer park split ends and was greasy-looking and made you look like you work at the sleazy motorcycle repair shop. You are a frickin' attorney and a very impressive one at that. You have a great job and make great money and look incredible in your Brooks Brothers suits. I thank God you realized that and cut your hair. I also thank God there are no pictures of the offending ponytail that I have to look at.

- No, I do not have any hair gel you may use. If we go on vacation, you are obligated to bring your own grooming products. I don't ask you for a tampon. Also, I don't even use hair gel! Look at my hair--is it sticky and tacky like yours? Then chances are good I do not use your nasty Xtreme Sport hair gel.

- No, your hair does not look good "highlighted" with a bottle of peroxide. It looks brassy, damaged, splotchy and orange. You are very attractive with dark hair--that is why I am dating you. Please don't change that without consulting me first. And NEVER take hair tips from your friend Joe.

- You need a hair cut. Don't even take the time to ask me, just go to supercuts. Chances are if you noticed today, I noticed around this time last week.

- You need to shave. See how red my face and cheeks are? I am not flushed with passion.

- And a final note on body hair. I go through great discomfort and expense to remove mine. You are a big fan of when I do this. The absolute least you can do is take your clippers to the three Bs. Or I know my spa does mens waxing too--I can make two appointments at once. Also, hair coming out of your nose and ears may be a fact of life but for heaven's sake TRIM IT! There is no way in hell I am going to make out with you when I am afraid the monster coming out of your nose is going to bite me in the face.

RGB
I have been fortunate in that no one I have dated actually had bleached hair while we were dating. I did however have a very close call. Shrek was from an area that was rather, um, what's the tactful way of saying "trashy," again? Oh, yeah, rural. Shrek was from a very rural area.

His senior year of high school (before I knew him -- we didn't meet until college), he decided, for some reason completely unknown to me, that he should bleach his hair. Shrek had naturally dark brown hair, so bleached-white was not exactly the best color on him. But nevertheless, he let his 9 year-old cousin do the honor of combing bleach through his hair over the bathtub.

She missed a few spots, but they "weren't noticeable." I really don't know if they were or not because, I did not know him at the time. However, I would imagine that dark brown spots in a white-blond head of hair are, in fact, rather noticeable. But, that's neither here nor there.

I guess the "ladies" of the area in which he grew-up have different taste in men than I do because, Shrek insisted that they totally threw themselves at him even more than usual for the time that his hair was bleached (I think this is a load of crap. Shrek was pretty delusional about his own attractiveness). He therefore rationalized that bleached hair looked good on him. I am grateful I did not know him at the time.

- Oh, and Ex 2 (Fruit Fly) had blue hair before I met him. He wanted to dye it again while we were dating. That got a big "hell no" from me.

- A note on the nose hair issue: please, for the love of all that is good, get some nose hair clippers. I hate when guys decide to take care of their nose hair with a full size pair of scissors -- that's some scary stuff!

- Don't use my shampoo. It was expensive.

- If your hairstyle requires gel, you have a women's haircut.

CMS

Now, I want to preface this by saying that I am pretty open to all kinds of hairstyles in guys, with the obvious exception of super-gelled oh-my-god-are-you-in-the-mafia type hair. I even have a certain affinity for kind of longish, shaggy hair—but not the emo look-at-me-I’m-so-alternative shaggy hair with the side-swept bangs and (probably) streaks of some color not normally found in nature. (Seriously, emo kids make me want to either rip my own eyes out or kidnap them and lock them in a room with puppies and kittens and butterflies while playing nothing but Jimmy Buffet until they suddenly develop the urge to join the cheerleading squad.) But anyway, the point of this is that it’s pretty difficult to have hair so bad that it makes me mad.

But that doesn’t mean that it’s not possible. One of my ex’s (the one who didn’t know how to order wine, if you remember him) had bad hair when we were actually dating. He always gelled it so it stood straight up a la Ryan Cabrera. He also had a weird hairline—it was really uneven and sort of squiggled across his forehead. I guess that wasn’t really his fault, but he managed to emphasize it with his stupid gelled hair. Anyway, his hair was bad back then, but not bad enough as to be a deal breaker.

However, I saw him a few months ago, and his hair has taken a turn for the worst. Apparently, he thought it was a good idea to dye his hair the same color as his skin. So now when he gels his hair straight up, you can’t tell where his forehead ends and his hair begins. His hair looks like an extension of his forehead—like the Elephant Man or something. Just trust me, its bad. To add to this, he has decided to try to grow a full beard, but his facial hair is really patchy so he has weird bald spots all through his beard. It looks like the beard a malnourished hobo would grow.

-As a final note, I’d like to say that I don’t have a problem with facial hair per se. On some people, it looks really good. But please, please, for the love of God and all that is holy, if your facial hair grows unevenly or not at all in some places, shave. Seriously, it’s a sign from God that you are not supposed to have facial hair. Just embrace your babyface and move on.

Why I didn't lose my virginity on prom night

There was an article in USA Today this morning about high school proms. Apparently, kids these days get proms with dinners, breakfasts, parades, cruises, comedy shows, etc. It makes me sick. My prom was nothing worth noting. It was at a mid-range hotel in Baltimore, we had no refreshments (not even cokes), and our only party favors were photo albums that cost about 50 cents a pop and a handful of hard candy.

The only thing truly memorable about my senior prom was my horrible date, Ex 2 (Fruit Fly). About a month or so before the event, we butted heads about his tux. He wanted to get something like the Dumb and Dumber get-up. I told him I didn't want to explain to my children 30 years from then that my date was, in fact, not actually retarded. After I had told him exactly what to get, I felt like maybe I was being a little bitchy, so I agreed to let him and the other guys control one aspect of the evening: the limo.

I figured there is no way someone can screw-up ordering a limo. I mean, it involves picking up the phone and giving an address. Boy was I wrong.

Fruit Fly was excited about his task, and wasted no time getting all the other guys in our group involved on it. I didn't really bother to ask questions about it because, I figured a limo is a limo. I was a little concerned when I realized it was getting close to prom and he had not actually made any phone calls. But , I figured I shouldn't nag about it. Even with two and half weeks to spare, I was sure he could find something decent. Finally, he told me that he had booked a limo and that he was really excited about it. I was really excited too, I thought for once he had managed to handle a menial task without disappointing me. It was a little late, but I figured a limo is a limo. It couldn't be too bad.

Then I saw it. I can't even begin to describe the shock and disgust I felt as the "hot-rod limo" came rolling around the corner to pick everyone up. "Hot-rod limo" is a huge overstatement. Had this name actually been an accurate description, I would have found it hilarious. This limo was a busted-ass dirty POS from the early 80s. It was gray with flames painted on the side and the driver was scruffy and drunk looking. His tux was totally wrinkled and he likely had not showered in a month. The interior of the car was dirty and ripped and none of the buttons in it worked. It was stinky inside and I thought I was going to get an STD just from sitting on the seat.

Fruit Fly had even gone up to the rental office and apparently looked at the car two weeks earlier. I couldn't imagine why he thought that this wasn't a POS. He even made a comment at one point that the car was pretty crappy. Well, duh! If you had just managed to do your fricking part and actually look at the stupid car while you were up at the office, this would not have been an issue.

The other girls in the group all glared at me wondering why in the hell I left this up to my boyfriend. I was thoroughly ashamed, but decided to make the most of the situation.

"Well, at least we'll be able to pick-out our limo in the parking lot. Right, guys? Right?"

Still, they were pissed at me.

We hopped in and about 5 minutes down the road, the driver stopped to go to the gas station. Weird. He stood outside and smoked 3 cigarettes and filled the car with gas. His smoke break made us 10 minutes late for our dinner reservations.

At the restaurant, we gave him the time to pick us up, and took his cell phone number so we could call if that changed. When we called him at the pre-arranged time, he said he'd be right there. A whole 15 minutes later, he finally came to pick us up. Loser.

When we arrived at the prom, he didn't feel like waiting in the line of cars to drop us off at the front door (probably a good thing anyway, I didn't exactly want to be seen in this POS) so he drove us around to the garage and we went in the back stairwell. Nice.

And as if the limo weren't enough, Fruit Fly was a turd all night, making me incredibly grouchy for having to deal with him. I don't think I talked to him from the time we had our pictures taken until it was time to leave.

In high school, people always made such a big fuss over prom. They would carry on about how they would remember it for the rest of their lives, so it had to be perfect. I couldn't even tell you what our prom song was, or who took whom as a date or who was on the prom court. The only thing that comes to mind when I think of my senior prom is how much Fruit Fly sucks at life.

I guess I should thank him for making an otherwise forgettable night memorable.

The first time

Shrek and I had plans to go out to dinner one Friday. Unfortunately, I had a charity event right before which I ended up leaving early and running back home in order to make our reservations. When I got back to my dorm, he was waiting outside. I let him in and agreed to let him check his e-mail on my computer while I quickly changed clothes.

As soon as he sits-down and sees my wallpaper, he freaks.

Him: "What the hell is this?"
Me: "No idea. Hey, are my pink Michael Kors shoes over there?"
Him: "No, what is this on your computer?"
Me: "No idea, what does it look like?"
Him: "Naked men."
Me: "Are you talking about my wallpaper? They're not naked, they're wearing swimsuits"

It was a black and white photo I had gotten off of the Cosmopolitan website that had three men standing in the water at a beach and in pink letters it said "Have a Cosmo summer!" Totally harmless. I would have shown it to my grandmother and not felt embarrassed.

Him: "They're naked."
Me: "It's not like you can see anything."
Him: "I don't like that you're looking at other men."
Me: "Ok, change it."

Note: Shrek had a poster of Carmen Electra in his dorm in which she is wearing what appears to be a bikini bottom and a chain mail tank top. Her nipples were airbrushed out to make it not completely pornographic. I never said anything about it.

While I was none too pleased with the fact he had a scandalous picture of some skank on his wall, I figured that it really was not a huge deal. I mean, it could have been a whole lot worse. It's not like he had piles of dirty magazines with sticky pages under his bed or anything.

I was pretty irked that he would make such a big deal about a goofy picture on my computer, but decided I didn't want to get in a fight over it, so I just kept getting dressed and let him change the wallpaper to a picture of my dog.

A few minutes pass and I am just about ready to go.

Him: "Who is *reads screen name of a male friend from back home*?"
Me: "Oh, that's Mike. Tell him I'm heading out right now"
Him: "Why does he talk to you like this?"

I come over and read the message. It says "Hi RGB. I miss you. When are you coming back home?"

Me: "He's one of my best friends."
Him: "This is bullshit that your guy friends are so friendly with you!"

He went on to accuse me of sleeping with all my guy friends. This did not elicit the most polite response from me. He stormed out. I waited a few minutes and called him. He broke up with me.

I changed my wallpaper back to the Cosmo guys.

We ended-up getting back together two weeks later.

But not before I made-out with one of his friends against Shrek's car.

It was awesome.

Mr. Gigantic One-Eyed Wonder Weasel

...my ex-fiance was not.

But he did have an eye for younger women, which was odd, considering I am 18 months older than he is (a fact he lied about when we first met but this was minor compared to the other lies he told so I'm not going to make a big deal about it). By younger though, I don't mean a year or two or even five (which at the time would have still been jail bait). Nope, we're talking a good eight to ten years younger than he was. Teenagers, and not the "barely legal" kind.

He also never actually acted on his looking(to the best of my knowledge)--he is not a pedophile--he just liked to allude the the fact he was in an effort to score "cool points" around "the dudes".

Roger dude, you have your dirty little secret. Please do not share it with my sister's boyfriend. You know it is going to get back to my sister and then her mother and the next thing you know, my entire family knows you're slightly sketchy.

Oh, but he did.

We had driven to southern Virginia to visit my grandparents. My sister and her boyfriend met us there and we went to a popular nearby amusement park. As we were walking from one ride to the next, my ex-fiance nudged my sister's boyfriend, pointed to a girl and said "check her out". He did this several times in fact. My sister's boyfriend, who is far from classy but evidently classier than my ex, looked at girl and was like "dude, she's 14".

My ex-fiance's response?

"If there's grass in the field, play ball."

Yeah, and if you play ball with a girl who is younger than jailbait, don't be shocked when you get shot by her daddy or thrown in jail by the cops.

What's cooking?

One of my favorite restaurants in college was a little dive on the side of the highway. They have the most amazing pizza and Mexican food (random, right?) ever. It is totally the best PMS food in the world. Shrek would never take me there though because he knew I liked it. He was a dick that way. He made-up some lame excuse about how he was allergic to everything on the menu. He had a lot of made-up allergies which only remembered he had if it meant ruining something I wanted to do. Honestly, if he were actually allergic to half the things he claimed to be allergic to, he would have to live in a bubble and only eat rice cakes. But this entry is not about Shrek or his apparent allergies to everything.

Ok, so, the restaurant. Love it. Didn't go there much while I was dating Shrek. He was a jerk.

When I started dating Fred, I suggested that we go there for dinner one night. Not being a crappy person, he agreed to try it out. He even managed to find something on the menu that he was willing to eat (have I mentioned he's a really picky eater?). Since Fred insisted on getting an appetizer, I was full before I finished my enchiladas, so I got the remainder of them boxed-up.

We ended up going home after dinner and spent the night drinking and playing video games. Around 3am, I was still up and starving. Knowing that I still had my leftovers in the fridge, I asked Fredto go to the kitchen and heat them up for me.

Now, I knew that Fred couldn't cook, but I figured it doesn't take a rocket scientist (ha!) put an enchilada in the oven. I told him just to set the oven to warm, and put the enchilada on a pan and leave it in there for a few minutes. He disappeared into the kitchen for a moment, then came back and we played some more video games.

A few minutes later, I told him it was probably time to take it out, so we went back to the kitchen. As soon as we stepped into the hall, I smelled something completely foul coming from the kitchen. It only got worse as we approached.

I opened the oven and saw sitting inside a half-melted Styrofoam box on a cookie sheet with my enchilada peeking out through a hole that was burned through. Disgusting.

The melted box was all over my food and I couldn't eat it. Not to mention, it was probably toxic. I should probably say at this point, Fred was 21 years old. TWENTY-ONE FRICKIN' YEARS OLD AND HE DIDN'T KNOW STYROFOAM MELTS IN THE OVEN! Furthermore, it wasn't like he was an English or Phys Ed major--he majored in a science so there is no excuse.

To make matters worse, he was a typical man so all he had to eat in his house was beer, generic slim jims and a three-month-old petrified piece of teriyaki chicken that he called "Sparky." So I was sitting there in the middle of the night, starving and suffocated by the stench of Styrofoam enchiladas.

Needless to say, his inability to heat an enchilada made for a bad night for all parties involved.

And I wonder...

Second dates are awkward. I stress way more about a second date than I do about a first. A first date is always a crap shoot as far as the guy's personality goes. I go in knowing this and don't expect too much from it. But by a second date, I already know a little bit about the person and am looking at them with a more critical eye. On a first date, I get to know the guy; on a second date I figure out if I want to date him.

Usually after a first date, I have some sort of burning question that I am too embarrassed to ask. However, the wrong answer to this question will immediately make me not want to date the guy. So, I will resolve to bring it up as a joke on the second date. Everyone does this; if anyone tells you otherwise, it is a lie! But the catch is you only get one joke question. Just one. It would be totally lame to play the ask-personal-questions-jokingly-all-night game. So, every time I am about to go on a second date, I think long and hard about what I am going to ask.

I went on a second date last week, and knew that the one thing I wanted to know was whether my date had been married before (he is a bit older than I am). Luckily, he mentioned his buddy getting back together with his ex-wife, so I was able to deliver my joke question relatively smoothly (ok, as smoothly as one can honestly hope to deliver it -- it's always a little awkward). I got the right answer and was rather pleased with my efforts.

Later than evening, he asked his joke question. Out of all the questions in the world he could have asked, he picked one of the dumbest and least appropriate ones I can think of.

Have you had any work done?

Really, do I look like I've had work done? Granted, I am pretty attractive, but seriously, I am 23. Not many people are honestly in need of work when they are my age. What exactly was he saying? Does something on me look fake? Are my boobs too big? Are my cheekbones too high? I don't get it.

I gave him some sarcastic response to the effect of "I had a nose-job. I used to have a really cute button nose, but decided that I wanted to get a big German nose instead. I thought it would give me more character."

I still can't get over this. Do people actually think I've had work done? Enough so that this is the most burning question people have about me?

I don't even know what to say about this one.

You knew this was coming

I've posted entry after entry about the fashion choices of my exes, the whole time avoiding the one issue that really bothered me: Fred. I naively believed that by posting generic complaints about his three predecessors, he would have caught on to the fact that I am very aware of the clothes that the men I date are wearing.

But Fred was none too bright in the way of behaving appropriately.This was evident through his lack of manners, his lack of style, his lack of consideration for others and his inability to not constantly look like a douche. Social graces? He had none.

Fred graduated from college a year before I did, so we had a long distance relationship for a year (which is probably the only reason we dated so long -- if I had to put up with his fat-ass humiliating me on a day-to-day basis, I would have told him to kick rocks a long time ago).

Anyway, I had come home for a short time during our long distance thing. My parents live about 45 minutes away from his apartment, so going out with him was a bit of an ordeal.We had made plans for him to come pick me up (my car was at school) at my parents' house at 7:30, then we would go to dinner, then go to a bar in Annapolis.

I spent the next hour getting ready to go out. I hadn't seen him in several weeks, so I was expecting this to be a big deal. I put on my Rock & Republic jeans, a cute top and stilettos. I did my make-up (and not just the half-assed going-to-work make-up I normally wear) and straightened my hair. I give myself an A+.

Well, 7:45 rolled around and I heard Fred'sbusted-ass car drive up and him get out and ring my doorbell. I was excited about seeing him, and ran down the steps, eager to go on our date.

However, my excitement turned to shock, then rage, then disappointment the second I opened the door. Standing there was my fat-ass boyfriend wearing a too-tight, tucked-in, pit-stained Hanes undershirt under a wrinkled unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt which was most likely purchased at Wal-mart and a pair of crusty-ass Birkenstocks which revealed his monster toenails. The worst part of all, however, was the pair of ripped-up jorts he was wearing.

I am not kidding.

Honest to God, jorts.

I was absolutely livid. I had just spent the last hour making myself look cute and he looked like he had rolled out of bed. I told him I was pissed by what he was wearing. He carried on in his annoying-ass-ignorant-as-hell-sounding-not-fully-capable-of-speaking-English way about how he wasn't sure where we were going.

If he had been listening, this would not have been an issue. But more importantly,why would he think this was acceptable for anywhere? I asked him where the hell this outfit was appropriate for. Clearly not going out to dinner. Clearly not going out to the type of bar I had planned to go to. In fact, I can only think of three places where this get-up would have been appropriate: 1) to wash a car; 2) to wear to Wal-mart; 3)Applebees. Our plans involved none of these.

I went up stairs and put on my casual jeans with a t-shirt and flip-flops. We went to Fudruckers. I had a nasty-ass hamburger. Fred wanted to go to a bar afterward, but I was too embarrassed to even take him to Notties. I mean, there could have been people I knew from high school there. And if I showed up with that piece of trailer trash...well, a lot of people know me, and they would have talked.

So, after Fudruckers, I went home and sent Fred back to his place. I have never had a more horrible date than I did that night.

Fred- I was always so out of your league. The least you could have done was try to dress-up a little. I hope you get the woman you deserve one day.

That woman has buck teeth, a tattoo, a perm, a spaghetti-strap tank top, shorts to her see-you-next-Tuesday and platform sandals. Go get her, Tiger!

Old MacDonald had a farm...

There is a Mexican restaurant on the Hill that I frequent, not because it is particularly good but because it is cheap (when I was an intern they had 10 cent wings and 25 cent beers on Wednesdays), centrally-located and known by everyone in Washington, including cabbies (this is important because I never know addresses of places I want to go, just names and general locations).

No longer an intern, I usually visit this place during the week for lunch between meetings but Saturdays are all-you-can-eat chicken fajitas for $9 day and so in the past year I have been twice on a Saturday when I was craving fajitas. Both times I went with my boyfriend at the time (two different men). Both times I was horrendously embarrassed.

The first time I visited this restaurant, my date was going through this weird phase where he liked to eat everything Mongolian barbecue style: everything mixed together in a bowl. He would do this with everything: bacon and eggs, filet and mashed potatoes, the insides of a turkey sandwich--it was a weird phase for him. Anyways, I figured this behavior was reserved to our at-home dining and assumed he'd be fine in a restaurant.

Then he ordered.

"I'll have the fajitas. No tortillas though and can you bring me a really big bowl?"

My recount of this story does not do it justice, but he took all of the meat and vegetables on his skillet and dumped them in the bowl and then dumbed the pico and guacamole on top and then drowned everything in queso dip. And he ordered three more orders of fajitas. It was one of the grossest displays I have ever seen.

The waitress looked at us like we had been raised in a barn.

The next time I went to fajita night things went great until my date noticed I had eaten my last tortilla and interrupted the waitress while she was talking to another table to tell her I needed more tortillas. Chivalrous? Perhaps. Except for the fact that I had finished the rest of my food and really had no use for three more tortillas.

This fact was not lost on the waitress. She gave me my tortillas, which of course I could not eat, and spent the rest of our visit pointedly looking at them whenever she walked past. I almost wanted to put the tortillas in my purse so that I was no longer subject to her wrath.

Of course, the date was oblivious the dirty looks because she wasn't directing them at him. She had assumed (like a rational person) that he wasn't a complete caveman and that I had directed him to order me more tortillas as if it were entertaining for me to watch both of them dance. So he was fine sitting there for the next 30 minutes nursing his beer.

I have stopped eating at this restaurant until their staff changes or they take the poster with my picture and a big red x through it off the wall. Whichever comes first.

That's what friends are for

I mentioned previously that Shrek was an RA in college. Before the start of the academic year, this meant he went through 3 weeks of training. Three weeks seems superfluous, but I assure you if you saw the winners who were RAs, you'd understand why they needed a whole three weeks to teach them a few menial tasks.

Part of this training included B.S. team building activities such as scavenger hunts and craft time (seriously). Basically any cliche leadership retreat activity you can think of, they did. Meyers-Briggs test? Check. Moon survival activity? Check. Desert island? Check. Shrek didn't mind all the training though because he was really good friends with all the RAs. He would always go on about how close they all were. I wouldn't understand the training because I am not in a group of close friends like he was with his coworkers.

It always seemed like the other RAs did not like Shrek much. They would go out and often not tell him. Or all plan to go out on the night he had to patrol. I had a sorority sister who was an RA in the same building and she barely knew him even though he would talk about her all the time. Weird.

The climatic end to their three week training bonanza involved each person writing something nice about everyone else. The lists were then typed-up by their boss who gave each RA a list of anonymous nice things that everyone else had written about them. This simultaneously warms my heart and triggers my gag reflex.

Shrek spent all night working on his list, eagerly awaiting the next day when he would get a list of compliments (he was always fishing for them). The next afternoon, he came to my dorm with the list of compliments. If I hadn't known about this beforehand, I would have thought the assignment was to write a back-handed compliment about the entire staff in as little time as possible.

The compliments on Shrek's paper were things like "Shrek would probably be a good boxer (aside: Shrek had never boxed in his life)," another gem was "Shrek has a unique personality." There were a few variations of "If I were to get in a bar fight, I would want Shrek to be on my side (Shrek was a big guy)." But, the best one of all was "Shrek has a pretty girlfriend."

I think a few people didn't even bother to write something for him (or if they did, it got edited out) because his list had about 10 fewer comments than there were people on the staff.

But the weird thing is, Shrek didn't take the hint and still went on believing that he was the best of friends with every member of the staff. I could not believe how dense he was. I didn't realize it entirely at the time, but I later discovered that nearly everyone he had called his friend really thought he was a huge jerk. After the break-up, I had his RA "friends" and fraternity brothers telling me that he was such a dick and everyone wondered why the hell I put up with him.

Shrek made a point of saving the list. I guess he didn't realize that no one on there said anything that would suggest they even remotely liked him.

If my good friends (or hell, even my acquaintances) had to write nice things about me, I would hope they could come up with something a little better than commenting on how my physical attributes may be advantageous in a very specific situation.

Waiting on the World to Change

The Officer/Gentleman refuses to shop at Target. We visited the local Target when he first returned from Iraq to get towels and bathroom decor and being a Saturday afternoon at Target it was very crowded so we left the cart in the main aisle while we went to look at towels. Officer/Gentleman is slightly prissy about some things, including but not limited to his linens, the stripes on his shirts, his silverwear, the blanket on his bed, hotels he stays in, restaurants he eats in, bars he drinks in...pretty much everything, actually. So while he was choosing between aquamarine and turqouise towels, a Target Team Member saw his cart, assumed it was abandoned and reshelved the items in it.

When Officer/Gentleman returned (with no towels) to find his cart missing, he went ballistic and marched right up to the front of the store and demanded the store manager explain why his selections had been reshelved. The manager politely explained that Target Team Members were told to reshelf stock in abandoned carts to avoid having them blocking aisles. This pissed off Officer/Gentlemen so he told the manager we would never shop in Target again (speak for yourself, sweetheart, I still visit Target at least weekly--it's the Minnesnowta in me) and that we were only shopping at Wal-Mart from now on.

I enjoy the trip to Wal-Mart as much as the next Republican but everyone knows it isn't even in the same league as Target. I mean, I will wear clothes from Target. I own a pair of sweatpants from the Wal-Mart in Bedford because there wasn't a Target for 20 miles and it was the middle of the night and I was freezing. The Target store manager looked at us with the same contempt as if we had asked if salad was included in a prix fixe menu.

Months passed and Officer/Gentleman only shopped at Wal-Mart until one day when he was looking for some plastic storage drawers and they were on sale at Target. Officer/Gentleman's frugality outweighs his principle so we jumped in the Mustang and headed to Target (I think we were also just coming out of a major fight at this point and he was trying to make a concession by taking me to one of my favorite stores). He got his drawers and was happy and we could go to Target again.

Then one day, we went to Target to get a vacuum cleaner (he fired his housekeeping service out of a principle that I didn't exactly understand but at least he was making an effort to keep his apartment non-gross). As we were paying for the vacuum cleaner, he asked the Target Team Member checking us out if he could have a roll of quarters. She told him he'd have to go to customer service so we got in the customer service line. After waiting in line for ten minutes, we get to the counter and the Team Member informs us that it is corporate policy not to give out rolls of quarters.

Knowing him very well, I could see he was pissed off by this policy but he did not go apeshit like I would have expected, instead he put the vacuum cleaner on the counter and said "then I'd like to return this and may I have $10 of my refund in quarters." The Team Member told him credit card purchases can only be refunded to credit cards and this sent him over the edge (I was waiting). We stormed out of Target (without the vacuum cleaner) while he was loudly questioning how a store with such shitty customer service policies can stay in business.

Um...because they are not a bank???

CMS and RGB lament waitresses in fine dining establishments looking at them with contempt, but ladies, you have not experienced humiliation until that look of contempt has come from trailer trash wearing red Target shirt.

To my knowledge, he has still not been back to Target. He probably doesn't own a vacuum cleaner either. That's sad.

He works hard for the money

Shrek was the worst resident advisor my college had ever known. This didn't stop him from thinking he was really something special. He harbored these delusions that he was bringing order to the chaotic system. Like most RAs, he had the typical power-trip problem. But he took that to extremes. He even went on a 45 minute rant one day about how RAs should get special parking spaces next to the dorms (instead of having to park int he garage like everyone else). This drove me nuts because I could see no reason why an RA would need to park closer to a dorm than anyone else. But I digress.

Shrek really thought being an RA was the pinnacle of prestige at college. He assumed that everyone else coveted his lame-ass job. It's funny that he thought anyone else on campus actually wanted a job. I feel sorry for people who had to work through college.

He only really had three responsibilities: 1) go on patrols of the building; 2) respond to residents' concerns; and 3) make bulletin boards. He sucked at all three. But, his failure at the first two tasks were not nearly as ridiculous as his inability to make bulletin boards.

Every month, he would scramble to put-up some piece of crap. He was often asked to redo his board because it was so bad. One month, he did a bulletin for Hispanic Awareness Month which had a 3-D sombrero made from stuffing crumbled paper under another sheet of paper and drawing a circle around it with a marker. It looked like a lumpy purple tit. He must have realized it looked more like a purple boob than a Mexican hat because he took a marker and wrote "sombrarro [sic] " with an arrow pointing to it.

There was never any real information on his bulletin boards. Just a boatload of speculations which he had made regarding the topic. For example, the Purple Boob board had little blurbs which he had scribbled on with a green marker that said things like "there are a lot of Hispanics in the US today." I am not exaggerating this one. His comments were either obvious or incorrect since he couldn't be bothered to spend 5 minutes looking up anything. Also, despite the fact he had atrocious handwriting, he couldn't be bothered to type a single part of his bulletin boards.

As a result of the crappy bulletin boards and his crappy attitude, the residents decided to draw over his work or rip it down. It was quite an improvement. The first one that got destroyed was about treating women with respect (I find it rather funny that Shrek, of all people, had anything to say about this). Shrek went apeshit. He demanded to his higher-ups that the whole floor be punished for their sexist behavior. His boss, of course, realized that it wasn't a matter of sexism, it was a matter of crappy bulletin boards and told Shrek to fix his board and get over it.

The next several months, Shrek would leave his door cracked open and sit by it, waiting for someone to start tearing down the bulletin board. When he heard them, he'd swing open the door and start screaming at whoever was near the board at the time. This was really quite a sight to see.

I was only there for him catching someone once. He totally chewed the poor guy out. Then, rather than write him up on the spot, he wrote a note on his door board that said "Memo to self: write-up Manny." What a dick. Then, for the next two weeks, every time he saw him in the hall he would make some snarky comment like "I need to write you up still." Really, what a dick.

Of course, this just made it all the more fun for the residents to mess with him. They would wait until he went to class, then destroy the board, fill his door lock with glue and put a condom on his doorknob. This continued for the rest of the year.

Every month, the board was torn down within a matter of hours. Every month, he would go ballistic. I started looking forward to his board getting torn down so I could laugh about how much it pissed him off. Even years after the fact, I still find myself laughing uncontrollably when I think about the temper tantrum he threw over his destroyed purple boob.

The only time the board was not destroyed was when I put it up. This was also the only time the board looked even remotely decent. The guys must have known that someone else did it and decided not to mess with it.

I found it amusing that Shrek put so little effort into a job that he seemed to value so much. Too bad he got fired from it and then failed out of school (for the record, that was all my doing).

I hope Shrek invests more in his beer sales career than he did in the RA gig. Otherwise, I fear he may never get to be the skanky twins' escort at bar promotions.