Monday, December 29, 2008

Dinner Crimes

Every girl has an insatiable desire to be pampered. One of the many surefire ways to impress a woman is took cook her dinner. The romance of a candlelit dinner and knowing your man slaved away on a stove or an oven for a while just to impress you is a surefire "win" for most guys.

But if you're going to go for it, you have to proceed carefully.

Most likely, if you burn the dinner or otherwise make it inedible, girls will forgive you. It's the effort that counts truly. We'll also likely never ask you to cook again if you royally screw it up badly enough, and we'll offer to cook from then on. We're ok with you attempting stuffed mushrooms or almond-crusted tuna steaks - whether you actually succeed or not. (Obviously infinitely more impressive if you pull it off, but I digress.)

A truly heinous offense, more-so than the failure to pull off a delicious almond-crusted tuna steak, and one for which you will not be forgiven, is making a huge fuss over a dinner that a.) you can't possibly screw up and b.) took hardly any effort over a monkey's capabilities.

We'll forgive you if you screw up something that took effort or was even remotely challenging. We'll sing your praises for trying to do something sweet, no matter the outcome. But if you come in saying you'll make us dinner, we expect a little effort... or if you're not going to really even try, humility.

Let me explain...

Berkley was a fast-talker. He was suave and smooth, but he definitely thought more of himself than I did in the end. One night, he announced, "Baby, I'm gonna make you dinner tomorrow night. How about some fish and pasta?"

Sounds wonderful, right? Fish is a challenging dish to prepare since its so easy to overcook, and pasta, while not exactly the most difficult entree to prepare, takes at least some degree of knowledge on how to cook. Score, a man willing to cook for me!

I was in for a disappointing surprise. I arrived just in time to see him in the midst of his meal preparation. The oven was on, and he was already cooking the pasta in the pot of boiling water... all seemed well.

Then I noticed the Kraft macaroni and cheese box... extra cheesy. I made this crap in middle school. Kids watched the blue box commercials when I was younger. This was not the pasta I was expecting.

But wait, it gets better.

I was sort of hoping against hope that the fish would be a little more high quality than mac and cheese from a box. Maybe he just didn't know any other way to make pasta, and I was more than willing to throw that in the "its the thought that counts" category.

He opened the oven to retrieve the fish... sticks. He made fishsticks. The kind you buy precooked and just set in the oven for 8 minutes or so.

I'm willing to let it slide if a man cannot cook. But bachelor food when you make a big fuss about cooking me dinner is absolutely unacceptable. This is the kind of "dinner" you make for kids you're babysitting because its the only thing they'll eat without crying for mommy. This is not something you play up for your girlfriend as a real San Francisco treat and then spend all of a middle-school amount of effort preparing.

Needless to say, I tried to pretend I was pleased. But Berkley's plan to impress truly fell flat. I would much rather he attempted a recipe with some degree of risk and fail miserably rather than pick something that pleases the under-age-10 crowd.

Fishsticks and Kraft macaroni and cheese = Dinner FAIL.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Cracker, Please

I don't eat many snacks. Usually, a box of cookies lasts about six weeks in my apartment (they usually get thrown out from being stale before they get eaten).

I was grocery shopping with Fred one day and decided that I wanted to get some crackers to keep at his place. I was over often and he did not have the most appealing food options (see also: six month old petrified chicken kabob).

Anyway, two days after I had purchased the crackers, I got a rare snack craving while at Fred's apartment and started searching his kitchen for my crackers. They were no where to be found. So, I asked Fred about them and he told me that he had no idea what happened to them and that one of his roommates probably took them.

I was a little pissed that his roommates would knowingly eat someone else's food, but I never said anything. Two weeks later, I brought TWO new boxes of crackers over to Fred's apartment. This time, I opted to keep them on a shelf in Fred's room instead of in the kitchen where they could be stolen by roommates. That night, I fell asleep after some studying. Apparently Fred stayed up a little later.

The next morning, I looked at the shelf and saw that both boxes of crackers were gone. I was furious. I opened a drawer in Fred's desk, and there were three empty boxes of crackers. The previous night, he had eaten both boxes of crackers. Two weeks prior, he had eaten my crackers, then blamed it on someone else, rather than choosing to fess up and buy me new crackers.

But honesty issues aside, who the hell eats two entire boxes of crackers in one night? I looked up the nutrition facts on these crackers and it works out to 2520 calories. In one night. And this was in addition to eating a full breakfast, lunch, dinner and other assorted snacks.

But, the worst part was that he didn't even throw away his trash. He kept it safely in his desk for those two weeks. And probably would have kept it all year if I hadn't found it. Disgusting!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Too Sexy For Clothes

Every girl has a fantasy she wants to live out with a guy. For some it's places, others it's outfits, and still others it's personas. I'm totally one of those I-want-a-guy-who-does-X girls. And what did I want? A stripper. Oh yeah. I never expected to have a chance to explore said fantasy, but, when I did, I realized the extent to which I hadn't thought this whole fantasy thing through.

Dallas was a nice guy. And yes, I am using his stripper name. (Don't track him down, I doubt you'll find anything based off of that... or at least you won't be able to narrow it down...) He was really a blast to be around and to this day I think he's a riot.

Yet, Dallas wasn't really what we'd call "classy," and certainly not high privileged. Not that he was broke, but that he had a propensity to spend his umm... hard-earned money... very quickly. Wisely though, was a complete other matter.

Dallas liked coupons. And I would have supported certain kinds - food... restaurants... etc. But Dallas liked the "5 for $5" coupons offered by the local thrift store down his street. That's right. He liked to buy used consignment clothes for $1 each. Shirts, jeans, jorts, button downs, ties, shoes, and, not even kidding, suits. He bought a blue zuit suit for $2.

Here's my thing. Thriftiness is a desireable quality. Living beyond one's means is unacceptable, frankly, and reflects poorly on your future abilities to buy me shiny things. So, while I respected Dallas' intentions of saving money, I was distraught that it was at the expense of decent clothing.

Sigh. I guess he was too sexy for his clothes anyway...

Monday, September 22, 2008

Five. Five Dollar. Five Dollar...Ribs?

Meeting your significant other's parents for the first time totally sucks. Meeting them subsequent times also totally sucks. There is a great deal of pressure to seem responsible, but not controlling. To be polite, but not stuffy. To be fun, but not obnoxious. As if that's not enough, the odds are stacked against you from the beginning because every parent is convinced that no person in the world is worthy of dating their little snowflake.

For guys, there's the added pressure of what to do when the check comes. If you offer to pay, does it look like you're implying that the parents can't afford to? Does it send the message that you are trying to buy their daughter off of them? If you don't offer to pay, do you look cheap? While I would usually advise offering, I would say that depending on the situation, either could be the right answer to the check conundrum.

Then there is that hidden third route which is never the right answer. That is the one which Fred chose to take.

Fred came to visit me at my parents' house. Since he only packed jorts, this limited our dining options, but my parents still wanted to take us out to dinner. So, we went to a casual restaurant which served mainly burgers and such. My parents ordered wraps (they're health-conscious) and I ordered a burger (I am not so health-conscious). Fred decided that he just couldn't resist ordering ribs.

This was a little annoying to me since it is such a fussy and messy meal and no one else was eating it. I was a little shocked that he wanted to eat something that was so sloppy in front of my parents. But, I didn't say anything. I didn't even give him a dirty look when he proceeded to get barbecue sauce and bits of meat all over his face and his ugly ass Hawaiian shirt.

When the check came, Fred decided that he should offer to pay. But rather than offer to split the bill with my parents, he presented them with a barbecue sauce soaked five dollar bill. Why? Because he figured his meal was about five dollars more than everyone else's. I wish I were joking about this.

I can understand that he would not offer to pay for everyone's meal. He was 22 and at 22, taking four people out to dinner, even to a burger joint, is a big investment.

However, given that he had chosen to offer to pay part of the check, I feel like the minimum offer he should have made would have been for his full meal. The preferred would have been to just split the damn check -- maybe offering to throw in a few extra bucks if he were truly concerned about his meal costing more.

But just paying the difference between his meal and the table average? How did this seem like a good idea? I tried to whisper discreetly to him to just not offer at all. This would have been a lot less awkward than offering up five dollars.

My parents were confused and annoyed by the offer and politely refused. But they never let me forget it, despite my attempts to block that night out of my memory.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

He's a Caaaaaniac, CAAAAAANIAC!

It's a little weird how much of my relationship with Fred revolved around chicken.

The night after I had discussed the chicken wings incident with Fred, we went to Raising Canes. Since Fred had already eaten one dinner and I am hardly the type of girl who can pack a continuous stream of chicken wings for three hours (sorry, I love my size 2 ass too much), we decieded to split a Caniac (which I paid for).

For those of you out of the loop, this includes 6 chicken fingers, some fries and two pieces of toast (this is important).

Well, since Fred was too busying blowing on a conch shell (insert phallic reference here), I went ahead and seperated the chicken fingers, removing three for myself. Well, this did not go over well. He threw a hissy fit (seriously, a fucking hissy fit) that I was trying to eat his food.

Um, wow. Didn't know he was so protective over it (just kidding, his fat ass and matching beer gut was a dead giveaway that he never let one morsel of food escape his claws).

Also, as a math major, he really should have realized that removing three chicken fingers from a six chicken finger meal is, in fact, taking half of it. But apparently he was blinded by the idea of being potentially denied a chicken finger.

In his fit, he claimed that I was trying to take his food from him. Apparently he believed this to be an ongoing problem. This was weird to me because we were about the same height, but I was half his weight. He was clearly not missing out on any food.

Anyway, I finally got my act together and and dumped him after this...I just wish I hadn't taken him back a few weeks later. D'oh!

Monday, September 08, 2008

Gotta Go Right Now

As a child, I didn't have the best coordination. I never could hold my pencil correctly and I tied my shoes the weird way (two loops instead of one). Not to mention, both my knees are covered in scars from the zillions of nasty spills I took. I'd like to say that this is one of those things that improved with age, but that would be well not true.

I'm as clumsy now as ever and on any given day, I 'm certain to have at least one knee bruised from tripping on the curb (Seriously, its like watching an episode of when curbs attack). I am completely clumsy, uncoordinated and awkward. This is an unchangeable part of who I am and I accept it but it has resulted in some interesting situations.

For example, I was home from college for spring break one year, while Shrek remained at school. I took this opportunity to spend time with my family and my high school friends.

One night, we were playing drinking board games -- girls vs. boys with the girls' team totally dominating at Simpsons Battle of the Sexes but after several beers, I needed a bathroom break.

I was really in a hurry and somehow in the process of trying to get my belt undone, I managed to jam it really badly. It had one of those slidey buckle things like an old boy scout belt and I managed to slip part of it out of where it was supposed to be and I could not get the thing undone. After unsuccessful attempts, I realized I needed assistance.

I snuck back out and pulled my friend to the side to see if she could get it unjammed. After a few minutes of pulling, she was unable to get it to budge. I discreetly pulled another girl to the side who was also unable to get it undone.

At this point I was in pain I gave up and asked a guy. This was incredibly embarrassing and awkward at the time, but he was able to get my belt off.

The next day, Shrek called and I mentioned what I had been up to over the past couple of days including the belt story which after the fact just seemed really funny to me.

Shrek did not see the humor in the situation. In fact, he spent the next 15 minutes screaming into the phone about what a slut I was.

At least that's what I think he screamed about the whole time. I put the phone down after five minutes to go get a drink of water and when I came back, he was still carrying on. I explained that it wasn't like I asked him to take my pants off -- I just needed someone to assist with my belt so I would not have to piss myself. But this point was lost on him.

Apparently not peeing my pants makes me a slut. But, according to him, my Vineyard Vines tote bag, Rainbow flip-flops and hairbands also made me a slut. I don't think that word means what he thinks it means.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Through the Looking Glass

When I was ten, my best friend and I stole some coins out of a dried-up fountain to buy a couple of sodas. That was the beginning and end of my life of crime. Shortly thereafter, I came to recognize and appreciate the norms and rules of society as well as property rights. I suppose this never sinks in for some people.

People like Fred, whose long and storied life of crime began well before, and continued long after, I met him.

This brings me to the story of his 22nd birthday, which he decided to ring in with an Alice in Wonderland themed party. This included him dressing up as the Mad Hatter. Not so shockingly, he promoted it as a party in which all sorts of illegal drugs would be available. Apparently this was the type of life he desired prior to his security clearance.

As much as I love the NOPD, I had no desire to celebrate my loser ex’s 22nd birthday in jail, so I opted not to attend his druggy party. But, whether I wanted to or not I still got to listen to all Fred's planning details. One afternoon, when I arrived at his apartment I was shocked to see a pink and yellow plastic play house.

"We're going to put a keg inside!" exclaimed Fred. I told him that was a cute idea then asked where on earth he even bought a playhouse.

"Well, we didn't buy it."

"Did you dumpster dive or something?"

"No, we took it from a playground...in front of a church."

Yeah that's right -- there really was nothing else to say.

Between the drugs and stealing from church, the majority of Fred's normal friends decided not to attend and, the party guests ended up being the weird druggy friend-of-a-friend type of crowd. I only knew one person other than Fred and his roommate who ended up going to the party. She felt uncomfortable and didn't stay long. Apparently Fred sat alone on the couch eating pan after pan of pot brownies while moping that no one cool had come the entire time.

Maybe this was him being smited for stealing from a church.

I'd like to say that he grew from this experience, but that's not exactly what happened. In fact, when he found a Wal-Mart ad in the paper for the playhouse a couple of months later, he proudly announced to anyone who'd listened that he wasn't a "sucker" like anyone who paid $29.99 for the playhouse. Classy, classy guy.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Snow Patrol

A few years ago there was this insanely crazy blizzard in my hometown. Worse, it happened over the first spring break in my life that my parents hadn't planned a getaway vacation. I was looking forward to hanging out with my friends, enjoying some time outside, and spending some quality time with String Bean without worrying about getting to school or practice on time.

Well, the snow ruined all that. It began snowing on Monday. Four feet later, I was snowed in and playing Life with my younger brother and parents by candlelight. You don't know real pain until you have one of those little cars stuffed with pink and blue "people" and your father says, "I hope this isn't what I really can expect from your life."

I couldn't wait to escape. On Wednesday, we finally figured out how to get out of our house and to my friend Becky-lou's. (Obviously a made-up name, get over it.) We spent the day watching movies, acknowledging the fact that all other options were buried under four feet of snow.

Meanwhile, String Bean had escaped from his house and headed to a friend's home, who apparently was having some sort of blizzard related drinking party. That night, they proceeded to get wasted. String Bean calls me, drunk, and screaming. Turns out a fellow partyier thought it would be hilarious to draw a... specific body part.. on String Bean's face when he passed out. Needless to really say, String Bean was peeved.

Instead of being an adult, String Bean abandoned ship. He careened (without a coat) into the snow towards his own home. Remember - he's drunk, he has a phalic symbol on his face, and he's increasingly growing closer to frostbite and/or freezing to death. Logically, he calls me.

My young and naive head could not wrap around the idiocy String Bean was engaging in. But, "savior" I felt I was, I begged Becky-lou and her father to let us drive his SUV through the snow and out of the neighborhood into the main town where StringBean was apparently wandering. Mind you, it was now icy, and the plows hadn't come through, so it was only what had melted down or been shoveled by hand that we could travel over.

The 10 minute trip took much longer than it should have because of the snow and the inability of the SUV to operate as a snowplow. We spun a few times, but fortunately got out in one piece and without having slid into a pole or curb. But the situation wasn't getting any better. StringBean wouldn't answer his phone. He was lost in the snow drifts.




After driving almost aimlessly through the deserted snowy streets of my home town, I spotted a lone figure stumbling through the piled-up snow. Sure enough, it was String Bean, who proceeded to beligerently tell me off for "following him". Like I really wanted to be trudging through ice and snow to save his ass.

We left after about 20 minutes of unyielding insults and anger, when I finally realized what a douche I was dating. If he refused to get in the car and was going to be a drunken ass, there was no use fighting with him.

Come to find out the next day that String Bean had been approached by another vehicle shortly thereafter. This one had flashing red and blue lights and a couple of cold and bitter men with flashlights who were justifiably a little peeved at this drunken idiot wandering around without a coat with a p*nis on his face. Fortunately, the officers decided to give String Bean a ride home, but not before giving him a breathalizer and a ticket for being drunk in public.

The next day, when we all could finally get cleanly out of the neighborhoods and the snow plows had done their part to clear the roads, I talked to String Bean about his frozen escapade. He defended his actions by claiming he was, ahem, NOT drunk. Didn't seem to register that he had a ticket indicating otherwise. And to top it all off, somehow it was my fault that he had been out in the cold.

Yes, String Bean. And I drew the p*nis on your face, too. I got crazy skills.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Call On Me (Call Me)

There's a certain decorum that supposedly comes from a relationship that pertains to what is appropriate and what is not. There are certain rules that must be followed, and both RGB and myself have seemed to find men who were completely unaware, ignorant, or simply too dirty-minded to understand basic decency.

1. Text messages and/or emails describing your physical and/or emotional state that are sent during normal working hours are inappropriate. Not to mention, we have it in writing if we decide you are too stalkerish to continue contacting us unabated.

2. Gchat is definitely the wrong forum to begin a discussion on the hardness of your.... day. I cannot stress this enough. You DO realize the potential for coworkers or superiors to see your little conversation with yourself, don't you? And you also, I'm sure, are aware that google stores these chats?

3. Voicemails are equally distasteful. Fortunately, my voicemail cuts off after a few minutes and you better be done with your message. If the time before it takes the tone to sound is all you need to do what you need to do, there's a reason we didn't pick up anyway. These are, of course, general tips on how to NOT approach phone/text/email/chat sex with a girl.



RGB:

As I was walking to work one morning, my phone started going off. "Crap," I thought, "my boss must have broken the copy machine again."

But, as I dug my phone out of my purse, I saw that it was actually the Dud. I was a little confused as to why he was calling, but I answered.

"What are you wearing?"

"Oh, I'm wearing a black suit. Why? Do you see me? Are you here too?" I started looking around trying to find a doofy blond guy on a cell phone.

"What are you wearing under that?"

"Oh, dear lord. Dud, you realize that I am walking down K street right now? This conversation is not appropriate."

He then proceeded to whine. I'm not sure what he expected. It was 8:15am on a Tuesday. I was going to work. Apparently he did not understand that I did not want to have this conversation. His penchant for phone sex was really quite disturbing to me. But, even if I had been up for it, surely he could have chosen a better time to make these calls.

Apparently this concept was lost on him because the following several weekdays, I received similar calls. The time always varied with when he woke up. Sometimes the calls came on my way to work, sometimes while I was sitting at my desk, sometimes while I was out at lunch.

Of course, hanging up the phone was not enough to get him to calm down. He would then proceed to send lewd text messages describing the state of his genitals and his general level of excitement. He would send me about ten of these, all of which I would not respond to. He would then call in an attempt for there to be some sort of grand finale.

However, soon it became apparent that my response to this was not important. He seemd to get his jollies off sending me gross texts whether I responded to them or not. I must have had thousands of unanswered texts about his junk.

Obviously, I had nothing to say back to these messages, so I would ignore them, along with the phone calls. He did give up on the phone call segment of this routine, but he still kept sending texts months after we quit talking. I suppose the thought of me sitting at my desk, showing my coworkers the messages from my perverted stalker really did it for him.


BJA:

As a more broad hint, I would broach the subject with your girl before you attempt any of the above. Assuming she'll be into it or receptive is presumptuous, but there are some girls out there who might get just as many jollies from such antics. Just... not me or RGB.

Diego tried to... invite me to participate... multiple times, and, to his credit, not necessarily all the most innapropriate venues, but certainly after making it clear I was not into it, the subject should have been dropped. And no, switching forums from phone to online doesn't work either.

Yet, the most heinous of these offenses was a guy a did not date at all. I did not go on one date with Announcer Boy. Two of my friends did, however, at different times. The lesson that should be taken from this experience is that texting the same message to multiple people is for making movie or bar plans for a group of people - not phone sex.

One night, I was having a girls night with friends, of which Friend 1 and Friend 2 had dated Announcer Boy. Friend 3 also knew AB, yet Friend 4 had yet to make his acquaintence, which explains her being saved this experience.

My phone started ringing it's text message tone, followed immediately by Friend 1, Friend 2, and Friend 3's phones. Four phones all going off at the same time.

"What color "undergarments" are you wearing?" (undergarments replacing a word a bit more graphic.)

All four of us. Same message. From AB. So, brilliant ladies that we were, we all responded with a very graphic and specific description of our fictional undergarments. The catch - we used the exact same description. Something to the tune of polkadots and bows, a specific cut of undergarment, and a wonderful combination of greens, pinks, and blues.

Moments later, my phone rings. Only mine, none of the other girls. Rather quietly, perhaps even timidly is the best characterization of this approach, AB asked, "Are you with Friend 1, Friend 2 and Friend 3?"

"Why yes, AB. And we're having one big matching panty orgy without you."

Needless to say, his phone sex extravaganza did not work out the way he had hoped.

Since we all called him out on his antics, hopefully he has learned to stick with one-on-one text sex. But who am I kidding? He's on loserex, so obviously he just found a new crop of unsuspecting women to canoodle over time and space.





The bottom line is this: if you're the type of man who...enjoys certain types of phone conversations, try to do so with class (well, as much as you can really show in this situation). That means, call at an appropriate time, only call the person whom you are dating, only call someone who is receptive to this form of contact. If you can't follow these rules, then it might be time to suck it up and call a 900 number. Sure it's pricey, but I assure you, the $4.99 a minute is a bargain price to pay to maintain your dignity.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

The Crying Game

After about 5 months of dating, Shrek's eyebrows were starting to grow together into one unibrow. It was gross.

Well, maybe not as gross as the fact that he cleaned his ears with a car key. And probably not as gross as all those times he spit phlegm into half empty soda bottles which he forgot to throw away for weeks, leaving a nasty culture of whatever lurks in his throat. And definitely not as gross as that really gross thing he once did that I told BJA about earlier. But, it was still pretty nasty.

I waited for about 2 months before I finally said something about the unibrow. By this time it was Bert from Sesame Street bad. I suggested he get it waxed into two distinct eyebrows, the kind most non-neanderthals have. My suggestion did not exactly go over well. There was no way he was going to get his eyebrows waxed. That was for chicks. He didn't want to look like a chick with thin, arched eyebrows. I explained that they would not give him girl eyebrows, but he still refused to go.

His male boss told him the next day that I was right about his unibrow (God bless this man), so he came back to me and asked me to get him an appointment to have it waxed. Luckily, I had an appointment later that week, so I called up and they were willing to squeeze him in right after me.

When we arrived to the appointment, he was nervous, so I asked if he could come back with me and watch me get mine done first, thinking he would see that it wasn't too bad. Sure enough, watching me get my eyebrows done put his nerves at ease for when he got his done.

Until the first rip. He started crying. Crying! I don't mean the few reflexive tears that an eyebrow waxing sometimes produces either. I mean all out crying about how much it hurt.

God, I remember this scene so vividly. The relaxing mood music playing softly in the background. Several small, white candles warmly glowing in an otherwise dimly lit room. The smell of lavender and sage hanging in the air. A 6'5", 230lb man crying hysterically about how much pain he was in. A confused and slightly frightened esthetician exchanging awkward looks with me.

He managed to get through the entire process (which was really only like 2 minutes) without running out, but he spent the next three weeks telling everyone how I made him get his eyebrows done. And it was the most painful thing, ever. And that I had no idea how much it hurt. Um, hello? I got mine done right in front of him beforehand.

He resolved to shave his unibrow, thus leaving two uneven eyebrows and some thick stubble between them.

His asinine belief that his rip shod shaving job was on par with the professionals was beyond incorrect, beyond loser. It was pathetic. And his eyebrows, effectively reduced to caterpillars chasing each other through some sparsely populated forests, looked foolish.

But nevermind that, at least I didn't have to see him cry again.

Monday, August 11, 2008

I Don't Have to Live This Way...

So, I'm at the end of yet another failed relationship. Probably the most spectacularly failed relationship of my life. I mean, how many breakups actually require you to move to another state with twenty minutes of notice?

So, I am back at my parents' house in small town Louisiana after making a sudden, mad dash from Little Rock, Arkansas where I had been living with my (now ex-) boyfriend. I am fully aware of the white-trashiness of that last sentence. I know that ninety percent of those reading this are envisioning me with a bleach blond perm and bandanna print tube top, living in a circa- 1980 single wide trailer. But that's really not how it was. Little Rock is actually a really nice city. It has an enormous amount of beautiful early twentieth century arts and crafts architecture and nice, intelligent people.

I'm sitting in my childhood bedroom that has since been converted to the office, drinking Franzia at one o'clock in the afternoon and lamenting the loss of my year and a half relationship. But its a weird feeling of sadness, mixed with excitement for the next part of my life. I feel free--if I had stayed with him I'd never have left Little Rock (as nice a city as it is, there simply is no opportunity for me there). But despite this, I am sad. He and I have had some amazingly fun times and there for a while, I honestly thought I could settle for life in Arkansas and be happy. It wasn't exactly what I wanted from life. But I thought, well life's never what you expect it to be...so maybe this is it. But the longer I was there and the more our relationship deteriorated, I more I realized that I was settling for something that would never make me happy. I realized that if I stayed, ten years from now, I would only resent him because I never had the chance to do what I wanted to with my life.

So here I am, back at home, trying to decide what to do next. Its an odd feeling to have all of your plans destroyed in less than a half an hour. But I'll make it through. And I'm sure as this relationship fades into my past, I'll have some funny stories to tell. (Like the airbrushed tiger t-shirt I got for Christmas.) Just give me some time. It's still too soon to be able to think about it too much.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Sticking it to the man

Freshman year of college, I dated a guy whose name rhymed with "Stan". He was a complete nutcase, but this is not about him, I only bring him up because he totalled both my car and my mother's car within a week and my sister coined him "[rhymes with Stan] [rhymes with Stan] the bad driving man".

Several years later, I started dating a guy who also had a first name that rhymed with Stan. He was attractive, ambitious, intelligent, highly-principled and had a very dry, sarcastic sense of humor that I loved--he was perfect for the first several months until I discovered his quirk: his life goal was to stick it to the man. Seriously, I have never met a person who liked to stick it to the man more than he did. And his preferred method of sticking it to the man was to simply stop patronizing "then man's" business. The list of places he wouldn't patronize was longer than the list of places he would. And he seriously thought that he could cause financial ruin to those businesses that crossed him.

At first it was sort of attractive that he was that highly principled because I am too (ask me why I only stay at Marriott-family hotels). Then it was somewhat obnoxious (mostly when he wouldn't take me to Target on a Saturday). As time passed, it ceased to be obnoxious and started to be a neverending source of entertainment, as in "how did you stick it to the man today babe?".

One time, we went back to the midwest for my girlfriend's wedding. She was from the same small town as my boyfriend so we made a long weekend out of it and spend some extra time with his family. He was supposed to fly back on a Monday afternoon and get home around 7PM but the boyfriend decided on Sunday afternoon that he wanted to get home earlier in the day so he called AirTran and asked if he could get on the 7AM flight. They only had business class seats available on that flight so it would have cost him about $400 to change flights.

Can I just transfer my coach ticket use my frequent flier points to upgrade to business class? No because you need a confirmed seat on the same flight to do that.

Can I use my frequent flier points to upgrade on my confirmed flight and transfer that ticket? No it doesn't work that way.

I should probably mention that we had a bunch of frequent flier points because a) we did a dual-city relationship for a while but mostly b) we had a AirTran credit card that we put a great deal of our credit card expenses on so we could get the points. Boyfriend saw these points as a negotiation tactic.

Well, you do realize that I will be cancelling my A+ rewards Visa card?

I've got to hand it to the customer service lady because in this situation she was about 10 times wittier than I could have been:

Well sir, the airline doesn't really lose anything if you don't use your frequent flier miles. That's a benefit reaped by the customer. So really, you are only punishing yourself. And the credit card is owned by a bank, AirTran doesn't get money from the card, it gets customer loyalty which is more important to its business model anyways. So I don't really care if you cancel your card.

The boyfriend was pretty deaf from spending too much time on the firing line which benefitted me in a great many ways: 1) I could make snarky comments under my breath and he never heard them, 2) I could discuss his Christmas present on the phone with my mom when he was across the room and he was still surprised on Christmas morning, and 3) he kept his phone turned up so loud I can hear it across the room. Therefore, I heard this exchange as clear as day and I started laughing my ass off. I may have actually shot beer out of my nose, I laughed so hard. Shocked that he got put in his place by a customer service rep, he quickly and politely ended the call. I immediately called sister and told her the whole story and he was quickly dubbed "[rhymes with Stan] [rhymes with Stan], stick it to the man".

Friday, July 25, 2008

Hey Hey What's That Sound?

Fratty was a frat boy. A stalker frat boy.

Let me explain.

Fratty and I had dated casually for a few weeks. At some point, I realized he wasn't really all that bright, and I had better things to do than continue messing around with him. Let me be clear, we had never slept together - at all. We hadn't been dating that long. Nevertheless, Fratty apparently didn't get the memo that he was never going to sleep with me.

We still hung out in the same circles, and occasionally ran into one another. We both happened to go to the same party one night, at the home of a mutual friend of ours who I had gone to high school with. Realizing I had drank a wee bit too much, I asked my friend if I could stay at his house. He was happy to oblige, and even offered me the guest room. Little did I know that Fratty had overheard the exchange.

Later in the evening, Fratty, "too drunk to go home," asked my friend if he, too, could stay the night. My friend, the ever accommodating guy that he was, agreed, telling him he could stay on the fouton in his room.

After I had fallen asleep, I was awakened by the door opening and shutting in the guest room I was sleeping in. It was Fratty.

"Umm, what are you doing?"

"I'm tired. His fouton is uncomfortable" And he laid down next to me.

"Uh, no. You can't stay in here. Please leave."

After repeated attempts to cuddle (you would think a couple of pointed arm removals, hand slaps, and the escalating face slaps would be some sort of deterent), I finally stood up and walked out of the room. Fratty finally left the guest bedroom a few minutes after it clicked I wasn't going to come back in for some more cuddling.

Not even a half an hour into finally falling asleep, I was awakened by snoring. There was no one in the bed, so I glanced on the floor. Curiously, there was nothing either, but snoring was still distinctly audible.

On a hunch, I looked under the bed. Fratty had squeezed, apparently quite quietly, under the bed while I slept. I shook him to wake his stalker ass up, but he was either in a deep sleep or convinced that if he faked it long enough I would leave him be.

I wasn't going to put up with it, so I went to my friend's room and took shelter on his fouton - which was surprisingly quite comfortable, contrary to Fratty's claims.

In the morning, my friend accussed Fratty of playing musical beds, and not-so-kindly told him off on my behalf. Now that's what good friends are for. Scaring off creepy loserexes.

Freakin STALKER.

I'm a Loser Baby (Part 2)

Stringbean and I had been on our last leg when the flying squirrel incident happened, but I finally found the strength and/or balls to dump him for good a few months later. (Remember - we were long distance, so it took longer than it EVER would have had I been continually submitted in person to the loserness that was Stringbean.)

Once again, Stringbean neglected to call me the night before. At this point, however, I had grown accustomed to his flakiness and didn't think much of it. I was in class, trying to focus on what my professor was telling me about the phonetic alphabet and the french language, when my phone buzzed. The number came up as "Unknown," and I let it roll to voicemail. I imagined it was Stringbean, and thought it was appropriate to make the jerk wait. He knew I was in class, and, quite frankly, I didn't care what he had to say at the moment.

When class ended, I checked my voicemail.

"Hey baby girl it's me... (automated voice jumps in) is trying to call you from Jefferson County Detention Center. This call is collect and cannot be returned."

Needless to say I was not amused. My boyfriend was in friggin JAIL.

I called his Dad to find out what happened. He was a little sketchy on the details, but Stringbean had been arrested the night before for assault, and his Dad made the executive decision to leave his ass in the slammer for a day or two. I fully supported his decision.

Meanwhile, I called his buddy Bovi to find out the "real" story. Stringbean and some chick had been arguing inside the house. Bovi had young kids who were sleeping and decided that the two of them could take their dispute outside and leave the kids in their peaceful slumber.

Yet, once outside, it seems the argument esclated. Suffice it to say that the neighbors called the cops when they saw a young man and a young woman turning to blows to solve their argument. When the police arrived, they found Stringbean on top of said young woman, appearing, apparently, to be strangling her.

When Stringbean finally called at a time I could answer, I had very little to say. No amount of crying, "you're supposed to support me," "I called you because I thought you'd be the only person who would be on my side," or any other various blubbering statements could sway me.

Stringbean and I were finally over. It saddens me to this day that it took a jailhouse phone call for me to walk away from this loserex.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

The Story of Us

I started my first blog my junior year of college. Putting your innermost thoughts on the internet and putting the link in your AIM profile is probably not the smartest thing to do, but all of my smart/witty/deep friends were doing it and we all do really dumb things in college. At least I didn't get herpes or something.

The next summer I dated MB. MB wasn't as smart/witty/deep as me and my friends, but he wanted to pretend so he started his own blog. Unfortunately, having already graduated from college (and I am using the term "college" very loosely) and being marginally employed, the content for his blog was pretty mundane. He attempted to make up for it by posting song lyrics (usually Italian opera lyrics that no one understood) and some of his original poetry (he was self-published). Shortly after we broke up, he took a stab at writing fiction. Really grotesque fiction (think scripts for snuff films). About me. Using my real name.

I am not going to go into details, but let's just say with a good bit of alcohol in my system, I could probably be persuaded into a few kind-of-kinky things. Necrophilia is not one of those things. Especially if I am the dead one.

Ordinarily, this would be terrifying and I would look into restraining orders, but, as I may have mentioned before, MB was questionably literate. So much so that you had to read each sentence three or four times before you understood what he was trying to convey. So instead of taking out a restraining order, I printed out a dozen copies of one of his creepier stories and left them on the editing table of the newspaper office on a Sunday afternoon.

My fellow editors are to this day some of my best friends because just like me, they are a) anal about editing things and b) willing to do just about anything to avoid doing actual work.

My friends didn't let me down and immediately began editing MB's prose and researching the submission requirements for the literary magazine (as in we called the editor of the literary magazine, told her we were writing a story about it and asked a bunch of "interview" questions--then, so no one would suspect anything, we stuck a random "call for submission" text box on the A&E page). We put MB's real name on his story and stuck it in the magazine's on-campus mailbox in the middle of the night.

I wish I could say it got published, but it didn't. Surprisingly, the literary magazine actually gets enough submissions that they are able to reject some. I never heard about it again, unless you count every editorial meeting for the rest of the semester.

I guess it's all for the best, as it probably would have resulted in both of us getting in real trouble if it had been published. And while I am all for making my exes pay for their transgressions, I don't think any of them have done anything bad enough to deserve jail time.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Alcohol, Part 3

After the riverboat episode, Fred was in quite a bit of trouble (well, as much trouble as one ever really gets in during college). Since he had already completed the mandatory on-campus alcohol class and counseling following his experiment in pantslessness, they had to give him something a bit more substantial -- the requirement to attend an off-campus alcohol evaluation. This meant that Fred would have to pony up a few bucks to pay for a psychological evaluation. And paying for anything was not Fred's style. Seriously, he wiped his ass with newspapers he found around campus to save money on toilet paper.

Not wanting to give up his life long streak of being unreasonably cheap, he considered his alternatives. His conclusion: find a professor licensed to practice psychology and get him to sign off on the forms. Of course, Fred didn't actually know any professors who fit the bill, so he "asked" that I have my advisor sign off on his papers.

I was appalled that he saw no problem with making me ask my advisor to do something illegal, and unethical for my alcoholic boyfriend (seriously no judgment -- he had a problem). He didn't even want to go talk to the guy, he just wanted to give me the papers and have them get signed.

Obviously, this was a no go. There was no way I was going to ask a professor to put his job on the line because my boyfriend is a cheapskate alcoholic. Fred eventually came up with the money to get the evaluation -- and held it against me for the rest of the time we dated.

Monday, June 30, 2008

On the Boardwalk in Atlantic City...

During college, I went on a few trips with Fred, all of which I paid for – hotel, drinks, the works. Invariably he never seemed to have the money to cover his part -- including things like gas, food, or even coffee. This wasn't too bad though I rationalized, since most of our trips were short and didn't involve major investments. So you can imagine my surprise when Fred told me he had saved up and wanted to take me on a vacation to the beach. I was absolutely thrilled.

Turns out, that beach was Atlantic City -- I don't gamble. Fred however does, but I assumed we would still spend some time together at the shore. I was wrong. From the moment we got there he dragged me from casino to casino and refused to even consider going to the beach. He hadn't even bothered to pack a swim suit. Not to say that seeing the casinos wasn't neat. It was. I had never experienced the glamour of endless chain smoking, the hopeless clicking of the slot machines, or the women “working” the floor before. All of these side acts however paled in comparison to the real fun I experienced watching Fred lose money playing poker for hours on end.

Now I feel I should mention that when Fred had said he was saving up it turns out he didn't mean for a nice hotel or for going out to dinner. The money he had been saving was strictly for gambling. And I got to spend two days of watching my boyfriend, who had never so much as taken me out to dinner, blow $800 playing poker. Ok, that is actually not true. I only got to watch him blow $300. The other $500 was blown while I was sleeping -- he snuck out of the room at 4 AM to “get his money back.” At this point you may be wondering how we paid for meals, gas, and pretty much everything else on the way home. The answer is yours truly got to cover it all.

In the long run though I guess that was a small price to pay for getting Fred out of my life – which happened not long after – permanently.

I'm a Loser Baby, So Why Don't You....

When to Stop Supporting Your Boyfriend's Antics - Part 1.

In a relationship, it is critical, and even necessary, to support your partner when they fall into hardship or difficult circumstances. However, in certain situations, this particular caveat is null and void.

Stringbean had a knack for "forgetting" to call when he got home after the bar or other activities, even after confirming that he would. We were in a long distance relationship, which made it all the more difficult to maintain trust and closeness that thousands of miles can obviously sabatoge. I'm not one to get upset about not calling per se - I am one to get upset about not calling if you said you would. It's a follow-through thing, nothing more. But that wasn't necessarily the issue during this particular event.

It was October, and I was upset that I hadn't been called the night before, but I continued about my business that day without pause. I was campaigning for a congressional candidate and couldn't have been happier waving signs and getting honked at out in the middle of the road. Then my cell phone rings. Rather than Stringbean calling me, it was a friend of his, whose name I will also protect by referring to him as Squatty.

Squatty: "Hey BJA, just wanted to give you an update on Stringbean's condition."

Why do girls get upset when you don't call when you say you will? Cuz if you get hurt or something else happens, we are left completely out of the loop, and distance only exacerbates the fear and worry.

Me: "What do you mean? What happened"

Squatty: "You mean you don't know???"

Uh... no.

Turns out brilliant Mr. Stringbean had gotten beyond wasted at a party the night before at a friend's apartment. Someone had made a comment that apparently made him angry, and he decided he wanted to leave. His friends, not wanting to support his death wish, told him no. They hid his keys and locked the door, while one of the bigger guys (lest we forget why Stringbean received the nickname...) stood in between him and the exit.

Stringbean was not about to be stopped however. Without thinking (obviously) he decided another exit was preferable. He jumped off the balcony.

It was a third story apartment.

Needless to say, Stringbean wound up in the hospital with broken bones and an alcohol violation. The ticket came from the fall, which I know may sound awkward, but follow me on this one. Stringbean didn't just yell out a carnal yell as he leapt from the balcony, but proceeded to justify his actions at the top of his lungs, disturbing the neighbors, by claiming he was, in fact, a "flying squirrel."

Sometimes I don't even know how to end these stories. And it's ridiculously pathetic this is only Part 1 of "When to Stop Supporting Your Boyfriend's Antics."

Friday, June 27, 2008

The Use of this Blog

I feel the need to say something here.

We write on this blog to vent, to share, and to hopefully impart some knowledge on guys out there who don't understand why women lose their cool or get angry about something they do.

It's not meant to hurt (usually), but it is meant for those of us who read it (which is only those who write it and a few of the exes described herein.)

So for those of you who are angered by what you read here, grow up. You are welcome to contribute to our sister blog "Crazy Ho" and talk mad shit about us. Fortunately, we know when we screwed up in our relationships, just as much as when we are"vindicative," or even, excuse the language, a "cunt." And we make no apologies for it.

We don't use names to protect those who might be hurt. We use song titles when possible just as a standard. (See: OFFSPRING) We also don't check blogs every day of our exes, though we're sure they talk about us - even unkindly.

However, let's get one thing straight. We didn't make this shit up. Our commentaries are vivid and honest. Sometimes we make it a little more kindly to protect those who we still give a damn about. Be angry. But don't expect us to keep our mouths shut when we tried to end it amicably and find the tactics and actions of our exes to be vindictive and childish, too.

And that's ALL I have to say. Quit reading my blog if it makes you so damn bitter.

PS. Not a word that was said here was not said to your face. And you know that. I said every word to you because I'm not a bitch.

PPS. We're especially prone to post stories after we feel the ex has sufficiently moved on that it wouldn't evoke some sort of reaction. Or when they play the game of calling us things behind our back. We see that as a big ole' green light for sharing stories.

Hey, Why Don't You Get a Job?

There's some comfort in blissful ignorance. Never knowing what's in store or what's down the road and having blind joy and excitement for the time to come is characteristic of a special kind of person. There's an old demotivational poster just for them.

"There is no greater joy than soaring high on the wings of your dreams, except maybe the joy of watching a dreamer who has nowhere to land but in the ocean of reality."

I understand the hope, the dream, the idealistic tendency to feel prepared, or the fake it till you make it mentality. But at some point, you have to also be realistic. And when all else fails, you have to at least try.

Diego is a bright guy. He's not the traditional loser we generally refer to on this site in that he's definitely intelligent. Perhaps that even exacerbates the disappointment we, as women, find with men who end up as loser-exes. Intelligence gives you such a leg-up and yet... I guess intellect isn't always followed by perfection, but the least we could ask for is proofreading.

Diego wanted to move to the big time. He wanted to leave his small college town and venture to the wide world of the big city, with big names, companies, and causes to boot. Being that I was already here, I was happy, even eager, to help. I have a few connections here and there, and know a few hiring managers, so I asked him to send me his resume.

Diego didn't have much experience to speak of. The trouble with having no experience in the field, in a town completely and utterly revolving around that exact field, tends to be that no one wants to hire you. When your star accomplishments out of undergrad were holding an office (not President) of one club, even though it was of considerable size, and two jobs as a waiter and a golf-course attendee... you're not turning heads easily. So I tried to help him improvise. Spice up the story, use descriptive verbs and emphasize the volunteer experience you have, right? Diego was by no means an idiot, and I had confidence he could handle anything one of these employers could throw at him if he could just get in front of them... but it would take some work.

Well, when I finally received the resume, it had a litany of problems. It was in different fonts, had misspelled words like February, switched tenses back and forth between present and past.... and just basically reeked of "do not hire me." To highlight the barrage of mistakes, I used Microsoft's nifty "Track Changes" tool. I corrected the spelling errors, rearranged bullet points, fine tuned the wording, and used a thesaurus for action verbs. After feeling like we had at least taken a step in the right direction, I returned the resume, with changes highlighted in red, to Diego. I wanted to ensure he saw where he'd made mistakes, and how to fix them and make his resume minimally acceptable.

I had really hoped my critiques had sunk in. What kind of message does it send your future employer if you can't read through something as important as your resume for mistakes? Let alone what do they think when you can't even stay in the right tense or mention "learning about the office environment" as one of your bullet points of what you did at an internship from high school....

The next day, he found a job he was interested in. Off went the resume to a prospective employer with my own email covertly attached in the "bcc" line, so as to prove he did actually send his resume and was moving forward on his own.

The first thing I noticed was the lack of a cover letter. You MUST introduce yourself and convey why you are not only interested in the job, but why they should be interested in you. This is especially critical when your resume lacks any substantive experience! There was but a sentence, urging the recruiter to review his resume and stating his intent to move upon the offer of a job. (On this note, you MUST say I will be there on this day at this time, may I meet with you or your hiring manager!!! You can't say I won't move unless I get hired by you because not only am I not a local, but I am unsure of whether or not I'm willing to take the leap unless you leap first.)

And perhaps I exaggerated... he had two sentences. The other offered an interview by either phone or email. Email, folks.

The last, and more heinous offense, was that the resume was still redlined. All the changes I had made, comments, misspelled words, crossed out words, rearrangements, etc... were all there highlighted on the screen for the potential hiring manager to see.

(Note: Picture not mine. Saw it online and it cracked me up. Fit well here. Visit www.CartoonStock.com for more hilarious ones!)

Needless to say, I was mortified. While I do not doubt that Diego is plenty intelligent and would make a good employee to someone in the DC area, I worried after seeing him make this mistake, and if I was doubting him, you know some office assistant was laughing her ass off and hanging that thing on the wall as the ideal of what not to do to get hired.

It was an honest mistake, to be sure. But let's get serious here. Any hiring manager would see that as a fatal flaw simply because you didn't properly prepare a document, nor do you show yourself to be adept at proofreading at first glance. You can't naively expect to be hired just because you're sweet and southern. Jobs up here look for demonstrated talent - and you have to show them to get them to see it, even if we know you have it.

Post-script: He improved his ability to submit resumes over time and got pretty good at them, along with cover letters. And, while Diego never got hired in Washington, he found employment at a local middle school coaching football.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Alcohol, Part 2

In my last entry about Fred’s drunken shenanigans, I mentioned that it was uncommon to get an alcohol violation at my school. Well, it's damn near impossible to get two!

But somehow Fred managed to accomplished this. I know, impressive, right?

During his senior year of college, he assisted with freshman orientation -- actually how we met – we were both coordinators. Anyway, one of the events was a party for freshman on a boat that was, of course, alcohol free.

Now, I know that there really aren't alcohol-free events during orientation and a few of the upperclassmen assisting with orientation would have a couple of beers beforehand. But, Fred never knew when to say when.

Consequently, upon arrival one of the event planners – who also happened to be his roommate -- told him to go home. He ignored this suggestion. The orientation director then caught a wiff of Fred and saw that he could barely even stand up and fired him in front of everyone.

Hurt and blaming his roommate, Fred returned to his dorm. Rather than just passing out like a normal drunk person, he decided to get even by pissing all over his roommate's bed.

Not before crying about not going on the boat ride though. No joke, he fricking cried about it. Seriously. Like effing tears pouring down his face, choked-up, hysterical crying. I cannot possibly emphasize this enough. This isn't really relevant to the rest of the story. I just wanted to point out that Fred cried about not riding on a boat.

Prior to his roommate returning Fred was pretty much guaranteed an alcohol violation courtesy of his display at the boat. But, when his roommate returned home to a bed dripping wet in piss and reported him he acquired even more charges. Then, he threw the soiled bedding into the garden below his balcony, thus acquiring even more charges. It was an alcohol violation bonanza!

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Alcohol, Part 1

I wouldn't say Fred was an alcoholic. I don’t judge -- well actually I do judge but I don’t make clinical diagnosis so let’s just say he was a damn moron. His escapades are so ridiculous that they need to be broken up in to three different entries – this is the first:

Most college freshmen have crazy alcohol-induced adventures shortly after moving away from home. Of those, a few unfortunate or stupid people end up getting an alcohol violations. At my school, it was really really hard to get in trouble for drinking too much. One would have to do something incredibly stupid to achieve this. Fred did.

Anyway, upon arriving at his room after a night of heavy underage drinking, Fred decided that pants were not for him. Underwear was also not for him. In fact, he wanted to be "Fred just a shirt," and insisted that everyone address him as such. He also, as his moniker suggested, was wearing only a shirt.

He proceeded to parade down the coed hall in just a shirt. A great way to meet -- and alienate -- your classmates during your first week of school!

His friends attempted to keep him confined him to his room, but were unsuccessful. The RA, who refused to address him as “Fred just a shirt” promptly called the paramedics who threw him into the back of an ambulance and sent to the hospital for alcohol poisoning.

Fred did accomplish his goal – while getting his stomach forcibly pumped he did get to wear a hospital gown – without pants!

I'm just kidding, they gave him pants. And a big fat alcohol violation.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Bottle of Red, Bottle of White




Have your ever dated someone aspires to be classy? If so you may appreciate the following.

While in college , Fred decided he didn’t want to look out of place at dinner parties (although the only “dinner parties” he ever had to worry about attending involved pizza and PBR), so he decided to become an expert on wine. It seemed a little odd for someone his age, but I didn't mind. After all, it is kind of really sexy when a guy knows his way around a wine list.

Of course, he assumed I would teach him everything myself. But while I do enjoy drinking it as much as the next girl, I really am the worst person to ask about wine. The truth is I only go to wineries for the free alcohol. I usually don't pay attention to anything I am being told about the wines. I can't taste the damn vanilla undertones and I don't really care how the light refracts in your pinot grigio. But, I suppose compared to his friends who exclusively drank everclear, I was the closest thing he had to a sommelier.

Anyway, Fred insisted we go to the wine store one day so he could pick out a few things. When we arrived though, he entered an almost fugue like state of fascination at the sheer variety of wines. He had only ever known Franzia Red, Franzia White and Franzia Pink. The wine store was truly an exciting and educational experience. Standing in the California white section, he asked me the difference between a riesling and a chardonnay. I told him that it's pretty much the grapes they use (there is no doubt in my mind that there is a more elaborate answer than this, but I sure as hell don’t know it…if you really feel the need to enlighten me, go ahead, but I most likely won’t remember anyway).

"Oh, yeah, they use grapes for white wine, right…” he commented. “And so, for different types of red wine, they use different types of watermelon?"

Seriously. And yes, I know there are novelty fruit wines that probably do use watermelon, but that is not what he was referring to.

He was 22 years old and thought red wine came from watermelons. But then again, this was the guy who thought that champagne glasses were called "flukes" (yes, fluke, as in whale tail, or barb, or part of an anchor, or accidental advantage, fluke) instead of "flutes." He probably thought vodka came from hotdogs, too.

I wish I had let him ask the wine store staff this question.

Friday, May 02, 2008

Till Death to Us Part... Or you know, whenev.

Weddings are bright, cheerful, and momentous occasions. The bride and groom share their new family with all their friends and loved ones, and all come to share in their joy. Granted, we all know that in a matter of years they'll be at each others throats, but that comes with the territory of tying the knot.

For the bridal party, weddings are even more hectic. Yes, we always must cater to the whims and worries of the bride, and we do so gladly. But we shouldn't have our own worries.

For me, the majority of the trouble came after the wedding itself. A close friend and former boyfriend of mine was my date to the wedding - from hereon referred to as "The Date." He happily accompanied me and even, quite sweetly, wrapped my gift for me after the airport had rudely ruined my careful packaging. And because... well I'm bad at wrapping anyway, so it was probably for the best.

Following the happy newlywed's send-off after the reception, the rest of us took off for some fun. The city is rife with bars, dance halls, jazz bands, and clubs. We went to a few of the town's most famous locations, renowned for their delightful elixirs of excessive alcoholic content. No city in these United States is more well known for the party life. (Hint - less gambling, more drinking. And beads.)

The Date and I had a long history though. We had been off and on for nearly a year. But, much to his chagrin, I had met someone new and I wasn't about to cash out for an old love who lived thousands of miles away from where I had moved after college. While this certainly was painful for the Date to hear, and surely I could have put it slightly better to him when I explained that I was falling for someone else... it still does not excuse the remainder of the evening.

I was tired. Waking up early to be wedding-wing-man takes a lot out of a girl! So by midnight I was dragging, and by 1am I headed back to the hotel. The Date stayed out with the Maid of Honor, the Best Man, a few other members of the bride and groom's party, and a few old friends of the couple. These guests included my former roommate from my last year in college. Nice girl, but at times... how do I put this delicately... overly friendly with members of the opposite sex. And by at times, I mean many many times over the course of my living with her. Not every roommate keeps a tally board.

I'm still a little sketchy on the details of the evening. And suffice it to say, I'm ok with it remaining that way. The Date did eventually return to our hotel room. At 5am. I didn't think much of it at the time, because this particular city has bars that open their doors to thirsty patrons twenty-four hours a day. Regularly! But I also did not need to hear what had happened through the night.

Remember, this was my ex. The Date and I had been together for awhile but had broken up after he had made a... bad judgment call.

Well, he made another one.

The Date had gone to my old apartment. Where my ex-roommate still lived. He had gone with said roommate. He had accompanied her into the room next door to the one where he had visited me over the course of our relationship.

I won't get into the nitty-gritty. It's one thing to partake in these acts. It's another to be drunk when such horrendous choices are made. And it is yet another to come back to your ex and tell her what you have just done to her former roommate. We may have been over, but let's put our thinking caps on and know better than to be downright vindictive and crude.

Next time, no former boyfriends will be chosen as my date to a wedding. Only currents or completely platonic friends.

Negotiations over.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Drink it up

Soda molds. I didn't realize this right away. I suppose it ought to be intuitively obvious – it is wet and sugary. But, I think I had always kept urban legends in the back of my mind about how Coke's acidity makes it a great car battery/highway/toilet/grease cleaner. I realize that none of these are true, but the idea still must have stuck on some level.

Also, there was the fact that prior to dating Shrek, I had never seen, or heard of, a soda molding. Like 99% of the population, after opening a soda, I reseal it, consume it, or dispose of it within an hour. Aside from not wanting to attract flies, there is the issue of a half-empty can of soda being a spilling hazard. Being clumsy, I make a point to not leave anything around that could potentially be knocked-over and create a mess. Shrek did not share my diligence in soda management.

Shrek drank more soda than anyone I have ever met (a combination of this and poor oral hygiene contributed to his nasty-ass teeth, but that is another story). He went through 3 cases of it a week. And this is not counting the sodas he bought from the machines in the dorms, the food court on campus or at Burger King. Shrek was also not known for his cleanliness. His dorm was always messy and dirty.

One day, he had gotten stuck working at the front desk of the building for a lot longer than expected (the person with the shift after him decided to leave town without bothering to tell anyone). I felt a little bad for him and decided to do his laundry since I knew he had planned to when he was done with work. I gathered up about 8 loads worth of dirty clothes (it had been a while) and took over the entire laundry room.

When I went back to his room to put his detergent away, I noticed that his room was really gross. Not wanting to bring clean clothes into a dirty room, I decided to throw away some of the trash lying around. I put all the paper plates and candy bar wrappers sitting around in a trash bag. I then went to round up the 20-some soda cans sitting throughout his room and realized that many of them still had soda inside.

So, I took as many as I could carry (4 – I have small hands) across the hall to the bathroom so I could empty them out in the sink. I poured out the first one. Out came some flat Cherry Coke…and a small white mass.

I assumed it must have been something other than mold. I mean really, who leaves soda cans sitting out long enough to mold?

I poured out the next can and even more white stuff came out. At this point I realized what was going on. I was totally grossed-out by the idea of dumping moldy soda in the sink. But, I was even more grossed out by the thought of Shrek just ignoring them for the rest of the year. So, I opted to continue with my plan of emptying all the soda cans and disposing of them.
Out of all the cans in his room, there were three that had no visible traces of mold inside. Three. I have no idea how long it takes a soda to mold to the degree that some of these had, but I am guessing it is a few months.

The worst part was, even after having a talk about the moldy soda, he did not get any better about cleaning up. The next time I was over (a few days later), there were 6 new open cans sitting on his desk.

Monday, March 31, 2008

It's Goodbye Time

The Sap was a nice guy. At least at the beginning. He was sweet, even went a little overboard by bringing a dozen roses to our first date. Granted, it was a week after my birthday, and he felt compelled to make sure I caught that he noticed and had listened the day I met him. It was actually a very nice gesture.

Our second date took a turn towards stalker. Let's talk about bringing up what a girl wore on the day before your date, when she had not planned or even noticed that you had "seen" her. Let's also talk about dropping the L-bomb. And, to really round it out, let's find out what you want to name your kids.

The Sap and my budding relationship quickly ended. A quick talk explaining that we weren't in the same place and I was no longer interested in pursuing this relationship, and I felt the deal was done. A few calls over the next week that were not returned, seemed to send a similar message. (Apparently, explicitly saying "no, I do not want to date you anymore" just doesn't do the trick.)

But the Sap was not done.

Six months later, (SIX MONTHS) I get a text message. From a number I do not know but has the area code that the Sap would have possessed.

"BJA, hey it's Sap. I wanted you to know I haven't met anyone who is as smart and beautiful as you and I really want to see you again. Please call me. My house number is __________, my pager is ___________, or you can email me at _____@_____.com. Hope to hear from you soon. You are the most amazing woman ever."

OMG. Stalker's suck.

High School Never Ends

I don't know about you, but when high school ended, I was relieved. No more pencils, no more books, etc. kind of relieved. I had college to look forward to! String Bean, on the other hand, wasn't going to college. He had actually graduated the year before me and hadn't managed to find a way to get into a decent community college, let alone a four year institution and a far cry from the ivy league.

Here's the brutal truth about those who don't go to college. For a large portion of them (but by no means all, there are many brilliant non-college grads who do very well for themselves), high school was IT. The highlight of their lives! It was all downhill from there, right? But for those of us who either went to school or at least matured in some manner (although many who even went to college never saw the light of maturity...), we never wanted to revisit our high school years.

So when String Bean said a friend of his was throwing a house party the summer after my freshman year of college, I was perfectly content with going. I'd just come home from college, where house parties meant kegs, having fun, letting loose, and generally having a fantastic time because the cops weren't coming by. I wasn't 21 yet, but who cares? We were blocks from campus and had plenty of friends to make sure everyone could walk at the end of the night, or at least one person could be the one we leaned on. (Very little "law enforcement" in the Big Easy...)

Much to my surprise, String Bean drives us to this hole in the wall house in the middle of lower suburbia on the outskirts of my home town. This isn't a college level party... its not even in an area where college kids live... let alone where cops won't dare travel. Worse - it was some high schooler's house.

She was 14. Not completely unfortunate looking, but certainly not the queen bee of anything, and definitely barely out of diapers. Have you ever noticed how those younger than us think that the more the show the hotter they look? Let's remember that this mindset is only expected from strippers or for costume parties. If your midriff is showing and you're jailbait - you darn well better put some clothing on. This concept apparently escaped these young high school bimbos.

We arrive, I disdainfully examine the "party." Guess what we're here for. We're the alcohol buyers. The high schoolers fish through their pockets for the twenties they stole from their parents' wallets. Needless to say, I wasn't pleased. But I used their money to get some fine liquors I wanted, so I felt at least some sense of revenge.

When we returned, the drinking began. That part was expected. What wasn't on my list of things to do was run from the cops. But that is exactly what happened.

Let's be clear - I had high school parties in high school. But we weren't retarded enough to let the drunk guys go out back and have wrestling contests while blasting music at 1am. And never, EVER did I have to deal with diving over a fence to escape cops who actually care about noise and underage drinking violations.

Since when is it ok to take your girlfriend to a party thrown by 14 year old skanks? Thank goodness that ends after college. Or at least I really really hope I don't run into any losers who think that's ok at forty.

Seriously. Why were we there?

I do not miss high school.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Follow Your Nose

Sometimes when you need to blow your nose, a box of tissues is just not close by. I understand this. In college, I would only buy tissues if I had gotten sick enough to go through them in a few hours. The rest of the time, I used toilet paper. Sometimes even napkins. I am not ashamed to admit my gross habits (for the record though, I have gotten past this and currently have three boxes of tissues on my desk ... but that is only because work pays for them since they are office supplies).

When tissues are unavailable, there are alternatives, some better than others. If I had to rank the alternatives, I would put toilet paper at the top of that list, followed by cheap napkins (softer than the nice ones), then nice napkins, then paper towels, and then...creative options. Thankfully, I have never gotten to the creative options. Fred, on the other hand, has.

One night I was at his apartment making enchiladas and he decided that he absolutely had to blow his nose immediately. Sure, there were napkins and paper towels in the kitchen. And there was toilet paper in the bathroom. If he were truly a purist, I am sure his anal-retentive roommate had some tissues to spare (Actual real tissues! What a concept!). But Fred opted for the creative option. His choice? A corn tortilla. I'm sure his inner monolouge was something like "I'm such a rebel, I am blowing my nose with food!"

I can't even begin to describe how nauseating it is to see someone blow their nose into the food you are cooking, but trust me, it was not a good time.

I was completely appalled that he decided to use a corn tortilla to blow his nose out of some sick interest rather than out of necessity. Furthermore, an unfried corn tortilla is actually kind of crumbly and not really a good material for this, ergo, it did not exactly work out the way he had hoped. Not to mention, they were much more expensive than any other option and they were what I was fucking cooking for dinner.

I don't know if he thought he was being innovative, funny or both. I found his display to be none of the above. And he was making his own dinner for a very long time after that.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Ode to Fred's Car

Every girl out there has dated a guy with a bad car at one point. And anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I've dated some guys with really REALLY bad cars…like Shrek and the Reagan administration era teal station wagon. For the most part, I am willing to overlook things like cars if the guy in question has other good qualities. I mean, it is kind of really hot if a guy drives something fast and European (I'll let you know as soon as I find one) but, a great car isn't the first thing I look for in a guy. And besides, you don't come to LoserEx to read about hot guys with fast cars. You come to read stories like this one.

Fred's car – a little Japanese number - was on its last wheel. The bumper had been knocked almost completely off in a rear-end collision and was held on – I'm not exaggerating - by bungee cords. The sides were dented in and covered in deep dings from the time Fred got his ass handed to him by a one night stand's boyfriend. But that's another story.

At this point I want to make it clear that I understand that things happen, sometimes cars get dents. In fact I've caused a fair share of dents in cars – both mine and other peoples (hopefully not yours ;). But there is a world of difference between the "Hey, it looks like the paint is a little scratched" and "Hey, your fucking door is about to fall off!!" situations. Fred's car fell into the second category.

The aforementioned incidents resulting in the detached bumper and dented sides were both reported to insurance and money was collected from each incident. However, Fred decided that it was better to keep this money for potential mechanical problems rather than use it to fix the extensive cosmetic damage.

I certainly understand wanting to save this money for something more vital to the operation of the vehicle than the appearance of the door. However, when the bumper is dragging in the street and shooting sparks next the gas tank, I think maybe it's ok to address cosmetic issues. But, I digress.

Fred wanted to save money for mechanical problems. Fine. Except for when those mechanical problems inevitably arose, the money was no where to be found.

So, with a complete lack of regard for the condition of his vehicle, Fred managed run his jalopy into the ground until the transmission gave out. This meant I had to chauffeur his ass around for the next six weeks while he tried to come up with the money to get his car fixed. Not the best situation, but the fact that he actually had a driver's license at least gives him a few points over Fruit Fly.

He did eventually get the transmission replaced, but 8 months later, the compressor went out. At this time, it was early spring, so I didn't really notice. But by the time it was 90 degrees and humid that summer, I sure as hell noticed.

I had (wrongly) assumed that Fred, like any normal person would have gotten his compressor fixed when he realized it was broken. But, Fred was not a normal person. I realized in the middle of a road trip on a particularly hot day that he had not bothered to replace the compressor.

Of course, this was also the day that we ended up getting stuck in a traffic jam for 2 hours. At which time, he decided to pass the time by rolling down the windows and blasting Raffi. I should have rallied up all the poor people within an earshot and kicked Fred's ass on the non-dented side of his car. At least then it would have matched.

Fred's reason for not fixing the compressor was that it only affected the air conditioner and the ability for the car to start. He decided air conditioning was not a priority and he was willing to screw around with his car for a good 10 minutes to get it to turn on each time.

So needless to say, at the end of the summer I felt a bit relieved to go back to school and get away from the car and Fred for a little while. At least until he decided to visit me. Fred opted to drive to my school (at $150, a plane ticket was prohibitively expensive). After a short ten hour drive he showed up on the steps of my dorm. I had once again assumed that he had replaced the compressor before taking such a long drive, but I was wrong. And of course, it was when he was at my dorm that his car did not start.

I had to call AAA to come tow his busted-ass car to the local garage. Upon arriving at the garage, Fred announced that he had no money, so I had to pay the $60 labor fee for the inspection.

But after the inspection Fred decided they were going to charge him too much to fix his car, so he demanded to go elsewhere. Great. Except, his car didn't start.

I had to call the tow truck AGAIN and have them tow the damn thing to the parking lot in front of Fruit Fly's house. This was a very awkward conversation. Also, try calling AAA sometime and asking them to tow a car to a residential parking lot. Trust me, it takes a lot of pleading.

Now, after a long fun filled weekend of towing and gas stations I had Fred stuck with me, and he apparently had to be at work in 12 hours. Despite the fact he worked at a fricking electronics store at the time as a sales associate, he refused to call out.

I had exams the next day, there was no way I could drive him. He refused to take a Greyhound bus. He refused to rent a car. So flying his ass out was the only option . The ticket for the flight leaving in 5 hours was $850. Guess whose card that went on?

A month later, Fred drove back down with his dad so they could try to fix the car. They didn't fix it per se, but they got it to start by pushing it down a hill (somehow this took 8 hours). His dad then had to drive the car all the way back home, knowing that if the car stopped, it would not start again.

I hope that poor man didn't have to pee during the long trip home.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

You are My Princess...Right?

Romance goes a long way in relationships. Sometimes the tiniest bit of effort can produce such astonishing results that women just melt. Flowers for instance. Jewelry for sure. A card in the mail for no purpose. A note on the car window. Candy. (Yum!) Making dinner. Writing a fictional story... wait... that's a little much.

I had been dating Gumby for a little over a month. I had found that I really didn't have the time or energy to devote to the relationship as school got more intense and the college search kicked into gear. I felt as though I was neglecting him, and I told him as such.

His response was to write me a story.

Let me preface this by letting you know how Gumby and I met. He was working at the local grocery store where I lived in Colorado, and I was a friendly shopper. My flip flop shoe had broken while I was in class, and I needed a quick cheap replacement. So I swung into the grocery store which I had noticed was offering flip flops for $2. Killer deal when you needed a quick fix in the shoe department. Gumby struck up a conversation, and asked me out. We went on a double bowling date with a friend of his named Ian. And from there it became a relationship.

Now, I can get to his "story" in response to me saying I didn't really have the time for him.

"Once upon a time in a high mountain kingdom there lived a beautiful princess. One day she came to a stable far from her castle. The lowly stable hand was awed by her beauty and offered to assist her with whatever she needed."

(Pause for the corniness to sink in....)

"When he muscled up the courage, he asked the beautiful princess if she would like to meet him in the village, where they could sample the local fare and enjoy the festivities of the night. When she agreed, he was smitten."

(Seriously.)

"The agreed upon night, the stable boy travelled far into the hills, onward and onward until he reached her castle. He was accompanied by a fellow squire, let's call him Ian, as he ventured forward on the clear and crisp spring night. For weeks, the two frolicked through the fields, enjoying the serenity of the mountain air."

(Yeesh...)

"Then, one day, the princess told the stable hand that things were just too busy. And she worried that she was neglecting him and the time they spent together. But the stable hand was not worried. He knew that the princess cared for him deeply and was only concerned about hurting him. So he assured her, that any time she had available was alright by him. Just hearing her voice once a week was enough to put him on cloud nine."

It went on in that vein. Essentially, the idea was: don't break up with me, I'll be fine just seeing you less and still calling you my girlfriend.

This type of behavior is unacceptable. It comes across as needy. We women do not want needy guys. So here's the thing - even a cute story is not enough to get a girl to stay with you when she feels her schedule is no longer conducive to a relationship. Our goal, or at least my goal, was to not hold Gumby back because I knew he would eventually resent that I never saw him. I knew that I would eventually resent never seeing him.

Relationships take dedication and time. They do not require neediness. So leave the princess crap at home.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Feeling Lucky?

Fred and I used to go to a Mexican restaurant near his house quite frequently. Well, more frequently than anywhere else -- he didn't like to go out much. Anyway, the first time we went, I ordered steak fajitas which were incredibly good, but ended up being rather large. So the next time we went, we ended up splitting an order of the steak fajitas.

Now, I should point out a mundane detail that really didn't catch my attention the first time either. Since I ordered a meat dish that involved cutting, the waiter had brought me a steak knife. The second time we went, since we were splitting the entree, the waiter just gave the steak knife to Fred. He made some comment about having received the 'lucky knife,' but I didn't really think too much of it. I just assumed this was his lame-ass attempt at being funny.

The third time we went, after we had ordered, he looked at me excitedly, and said "I wonder who's going to get the lucky knife this time." I looked at him and asked what exactly he thought the purpose of the lucky knife even was. He told me "I'm not sure, I think it's just some kind of tradition in Mexico."

D'oh. I still have no idea how someone who was in his mid-twenties managed to never grasp the concept of a steak knife. He honestly thought it was just a little lucky treat that someone at each table was randomly rewarded with for eating dinner. Seriously, how the hell did he function?

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Why The Dud Cannot be Left Unattended, Part IV

I have some minor health issues that are not particularly life threatening, but are particularly painful. As a result, I have some very needed prescription painkillers.

The first time the Dud was over at my apartment, he was snooping through my stuff and came across my prescriptions. I explained to him why I have them and that they are very much needed. However, my explanation apparently went in one ear and out the other.

Over the next few weeks, I noticed that my pills started to disappear-- several at once. And usually after the Dud had spent the night. Seeing that he was stealing my medication, I started hiding them in my dresser, thinking that he would be less inclined to take them if they were not in plain sight.

That didn't stop him. I came out of the shower one morning to see him digging through my drawers. When I asked him what he was doing, he nonchalantly asked "Hey, where are your drugs?" as if this were a perfectly acceptable and legitimate thing for him to be doing.

While I do not condone taking a medication prescribed to another person, I would at least be able to understand where he was coming from had he been suffering from a kidney stone or something. But, no. He was in no pain whatsoever and was taking my painkillers recreationally.

I was livid that he honestly felt no shame in taking medication from a sick person. That's like stealing food from starving children in a third world country (I mean in concept, not in severity). Who the hell does that?

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Why The Dud Cannot be Left Unattended, Part III

Once again, the Dud had spent a weekday night over and was getting in the way of me getting ready for work. I decided to lock him out of my bathroom so I could straighten my hair in peace.

That didn’t last long. Within seconds of turning the lock, I heard him opening my dresser then announcing that he was rummaging my underwear drawer. I calmly asked him to stop. He was quiet, so I assumed he had.

A minute later, he asked “If you came out here and I was masturbating with this blue and white lacy thong, would you be pissed?”

No, I am not making this up. I explained to him that I would be pissed and that when I came out, he better not have said undergarment.

A minute later, when I came out of the bathroom, he was in my bed, being intimate with my blue and white lacy thong. Gross. I immediately took it away from him and threw it in my hamper. I have washed it several times since, yet still feel too disgusted by it to ever wear it.

I'm sure there are people out there who would not find this offensive. I am sure there are even people who would be turned on by this. I am not one of those people. I find this incredibly offensive. Perhaps this makes me prude (and trust me, I've been called this many times before).

However, nasty or not, he did something that he knew I would find offensive and disgusting. In fact, he did it primarily for the purpose of ticking me off. While I am incredibly bothered by the nastiness of the situation, I am more bothered by the fact he had the audacity to come to my house and purposely try to do things that would be offensive to me after I specifically requested he not do those things. He honestly found it amusing to do things that were upsetting and offensive to me and expected me to just let it slide.

The way I see it, this is on par with me going to his house, taking a crap in his living room, then thinking it's funny that he is upset by that and expecting him to get over it. It just doesn't seem reasonable, does it?