Who's gonna drive you home?

O/G is five weeks older than me. Most of the time we were dating, it was barely noticeable, but there were a few age-restricted activities that always seemed to fall in those five weeks that made life complicated. One of such was renting a car.

As everyone knows, if you rent a car before you're 25, you are tagged with all sorts of extra fees. It's grossly unfair because I was no bit a better driver on my 25th birthday than I was the day before, but it's based on accident data and I understand a business has to make a decision about risk so whatever.

O/G's 25th birthday was on a week day in early April. I planned to fly to Georgia the following weekend to celebrate. The previous time I had visited, I had flown to Jacksonville, rented a car (taking the hit on extra fees), and driven 90 minutes up I-95 to his house (it had been cheaper to do this than fly directly to Savannah and I was visiting for a long weekend so the drive wasn't a big deal). O/G really liked that I had a rental car because it meant he didn't have to put miles on his car and we could go out to the bars and cab home and then retrieve the other car the next morning. He liked it so much that he requested I do it again for his birthday. And by requested, I mean demanded in his whiny-baby voice.

The smart thing to do would have been for him to rent the car in his name, as by the time I arrived in Savannah on Friday afternoon, he would have already been 25 and thus wouldn't have to pay the extra fees. I suggested this as I was planning my travel but he didn't want to do this. His reasoning? It was his birthday so he didn't want to pay AND it was my turn to visit him and therefore my turn to pay for the travel costs.

I offered to write him a check for the amount of the car rental (since the fee itself usually has to be charged to a credit card in the driver's name), but he didn't like that idea because he didn't feel comfortable letting me drive a car that was rented in his name. Plus, in his words "the travel thing is your problem this time babe". Sort of like how I made it his probably to get him to and from the airport when he came to visit DC or how I left him to deal with his problem when his flight home got canceled during a snow storm. But that's probably why our relationship soured: I never made anything his problem and therefore he did not know how to solve his own problems.

In the end, I rented a car and paid the extra fees and spent the weekend driving him around on his errands because he didn't want to put miles on his car. After all, it was his birthday and I was a complete pushover back then.

Requiem for My Love Life

Fred decided one day that he wanted to watch "Requiem for a Dream." Since no one owned this movie on DVD (it is far too depressing for most people to want to watch more than once), he decided to go rent it from the local Blockbuster. This was located next door to the Circle K, where he went every single day to buy cigarettes, so it seemed like it would be easy to take it back after two days (this was before the whole 'no late fee' thing).

Well, I suppose taking the movie back managed to slip his mind every day for two months. Until one day when I was in his apartment and one of his roommates commented that the movie had been sitting there forever. Another roommate said that Fred didn't really care about bringing it back because it was on RGB's account. Fred laughed at this. The part that pissed me off was the fact that I know he had probably said this to his roommates earlier. He really thought it would be quite funny to stick me with an outrageous bill for his laziness.

But, I was the one who would get the last laugh.

"I don't have a Blockbuster account." I casually said. "So, it must have been on Fred's."

At that point, Fred screamed a word I will not put on here and immediately ran out to take the DVD back.

Funny how it was a game to not take it back when it meant sticking me with the bill. But as soon as it involved him, he was out the door before even bothering to put on clothes he didn't sleep in.

A week later, his parents called regarding the bill and I got to hear him lie to them by saying he returned that movie the day after he got it and it must be a mistake on their end.

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".

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.

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.

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.

How to Never Get in My Pants, Ever

I met a guy at the bar last week who was so awful, I am going to use him to illustrate the best method to not get in my pants.

1) Make sure you are only attractive when I am drunk, in a dark bar, and missing one contact. Once we got somewhere with lighting, I realized this bargoyle had an uncanny resemblance to Napoleon Dynamite.

2) Have a lame-ass job. IT guy is not a sexy profession.

3) Spill your vodka tonic down my white shirt. Classy.

4) Tell me that since you’re separated from you friends and live far away you’ll have to come home with me. Um, no you won’t.

5) When I go across the street with my sister and company to eat a drunk meal, leave the table before we order, then yell at me when you get back for not ordering for you. How the hell am I supposed to know what you like?

6) Do not offer to pay for your drunk meal. Look, ideally, you would have offered to split the check with the other gentleman at the table. Second best would be you at least offered to pay for my food. Acceptable would be if you paid for your own. You did none of the above.

7) Ask again if you can come home with me. No. This resulted in my running in a cab and slamming the door.

8) Facebook me. Now I can see that you lied about your age. Nice.

9) Ask me if I want to go out to eat lunch in the park this week. Lunch in the park = cheap = no. If you want to redeem yourself at this point, you should take me somewhere nice. Or not. You’d probably make me pay anyway. Cheapskate.

10) When I turn you down, ask me if I want to meet up with you this weekend. Again, that would be a big fat NO. Furthermore, if I wouldn’t give you a lunch hour during the week, what makes you think you can have a Saturday night? I don’t give those away to just anyone.

So there you have it. At this point, there is absolutely nothing Napoleon could do that would get him in my pants. If you want similar results then, by all means, please follow these steps.

Yummy yummy yummy

Ex 4 (who from here on out shall be referred to as “Fred Flintstone” due to the fact they had the same physique) had the absolute filthiest apartment I have ever seen. Let me back-up a little.

While we were in college, Fred lived next door to me with three other guys. They were all filthy and took pride in their filth. At one point, there was a red mold growing on the wall in their bathroom, but it was killed a few weeks later by a yellow mold which overtook it. The apartment did not once, in an entire year, see a cleaning product. The bathroom permanently smelled like vomit, crap and beer. There were ripped-up magazines (from when they decided not to waste money on TP) covering the floor and empty bottles of beer in the shower (one of his roommates was a raging alcoholic).

His roommates would sit around and brag about how messy it was. Gross. He finally did some “deep cleaning” at the end of the year. The apartment was a million times cleaner than I had ever seen it and it was still foul. His mother came to move him out after said deep cleaning and cried when she saw the place. She was really quite distraught that her son had been living in squalor.

But little Fred grew up and graduated from college. He moved away, got a job and an apartment. I assumed that he would really take pride in having his own place and keep it clean. I convinced myself that the only reason the other apartment was messy is because he had 3 other roommates who encouraged it. Not only that, but it’s easier to pass off responsibility for a dirty place when there are 3 other people to blame.

As is the case about the overly optimistic assumptions I make about men, I was wrong.

It was only a matter of weeks before the apartment was even worse than the old one. The bathroom was never cleaned, the kitchen had dirty dishes lining all free counter space and half-eaten food was sitting throughout the apartment. The combination of these things resulted in his apartment smelling like rotting ass. I even gave him cleaning supplies for Christmas (along with other things – this was really more of a gag gift) to encourage him to clean his nasty-ass apartment. Didn’t work.

Several times I suggested he get a maid service to come every two weeks. He would flip out and insist that he was capable of keeping his own living space clean. Bullshit.

I will be the first to admit that I am a messy person. I am not, however, a dirty person. Half-eaten food is something that really grosses the hell out of me. I am insane about dirty dishes too (don’t even ask how many times in college I was the one to crack and wash everyone else’s dishes). So, naturally, I would never want to cook in his kitchen. At first, I would help him clean-up the kitchen so it was clean enough for me to make dinner. After awhile, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I never wanted to eat anything that had been in that hell hole.

This resulted in us eating out a lot more, which led to Fred bitching about how much money he was spending on going out.

Well, dumbass, if you could have taken 30 minutes out of your busy week to do some dishes and wipe down the counters, you could have had all the cheap home-cooked meals you could stomach.

How was I supposed to know?

During the first month of my freshman year of college, a guy approached me at a bar and asked if I was in his psychology class. It ended up that I was. He then asked how I did on the last test and I told what my score was and his jaw dropped. I had gotten the highest grade in the class, and therefore had set the curve for everyone else. He had gotten a D-. He explained that there was just a lot that he didn't get. I asked if there was anything in particular that came to mind, and he said he didn't understand what "cognitive" meant. Oh boy. I apologized and told him if he ever needed any help, he could borrow my notes.

The next week in class, he asked if I wanted to get together to help him study. Not wanting to be a bitch, I agreed. We decided to meet later that week in front of the library.

When the time rolled around for our study date, I threw my text book and notes into my backpack and made my way to the library. He was already there (probably because I was 5 minutes late), and asked if I wanted to go grab something to eat first. It seemed reasonable since it was about 5 in the afternoon. So, I agreed, and we walked up the street to a local diner. We both got hamburgers, and paid for our own meals. As we walked back to campus, he suggested we go to his dorm instead of to the library. This should have sent up a red flag, but I just assumed that he didn't like the uncomfortable library chairs.

We got back to his room, and I sat down and started to pull out my books. He looked at me, and raised a quizzical eyebrow. "You actually brought your books?" he asked.

Apparently, he didn't really want to study, which I found ridiculous. Everyone else I tell this to laughs at me because, apparently "study" is a euphemism for "come over and screw." Damn, I wish that had been in my freshman handbook.

But, it isn't the whole studying facade that annoys me most about this; it's the fact that he was trying to get in my pants and didn't even pay for my dinner! Cheapskate.

A story from Shrek

He no shit told me this once:

Shrek always had beef with Nordstrom, which was a problem for me, because it is one of my favorite stores. His beef stemmed from the following incident.

He was at the Nordstrom in Denver (I know, big vacay for his family). Anyway, a sales person in so many words told him to leave because there was nothing there for him. This still shocks me, and makes me wonder what atrocity he must have been wearing. I have been to nice stores dressed crappily, but never so much so that I was asked to leave.

Anyway, he decided that this called for retaliation. I think he was going for that scene in Pretty Woman when Julia Roberts returns to the store which refused her service, and shows the bags upon bags of Versace which she purchased down the street. Anyway, he didin’t have the funds to pull this off, so he tried to fake it. He told her that he was the nephew of *insert name of some used car dealership guy on those tacky commercials all over Denver* and that he was looking to buy three suits to go to work with his uncle, but he would take his business elsewhere.

To this day it still amazes me that when he tries to not sound like PWT, he just sounds even more like PWT. How sad is it that the least trashy profession he could come up with was used car salesman. What a tool.

I wonder if he went to Applebees after that to drown his sorrows in a plate of riblets.

On her first blind date...

Okay, I'm done with being reflective. Time for more stories:

Once in college I was set up on a blind date. This was particularly rare because practically everyone at my small college knew practically everyone else but my friend managed to find the one guy I didn't know and set us up. The date was very casual: the date and I, along with my friend and another friend (all girls except the date) were all going to go to see a college theater production and then have drinks at the local bar later that night. It was a Tuesday, which wasn't a big drinking night at my college so rowdiness was not on the menu.

So we all meet up and introductions were made and we went to the theater. Walking there, I discovered the date was a complete dud and he was ugly AND he was wearing sneakers at a school where no one wears sneakers* and so I thanked God that there would be entertainment and then alcohol later.

So we sit through the play (it was pretty good) and then walk to the bar, where we grab a booth in the restaurant portion of the bar. The other friend and I had already eaten--we had grabbed snack bar food before we all met up--so we just had the cheap draft beer on special ($2 pints). The date and my friend who had set us up had not eaten so they ordered from the menu. And not just buffalo wings--they ordered meals. And they ordered expensive import bottled beer. Which is fine--that's their perogative.

The date was completely boring. I think the only vaguely interesting thing he said was that he had never had whatever beer he was drinking before, as if this was supposed to make him adventurous or something...I don't know. Wednesdays were always super-busy for me in college so I was looking to cut the evening short anyways (I would have made an exception if he had been interesting--my first real date with my current was on a Tuesday night and we stayed up until 5 in the morning--well, he stayed up that late, around 3AM I demanded to watch Spiderman on DVD and then passed out within the first ten minutes).

The check comes and it's for like $60, once you add in tip. If we were going to divide it four ways, which we shouldn't have done because two people ate real meals and the other two drank two-dollar drafts, we'd each pay $15. So you would think he should AT LEAST toss in $15 for his quarter (which was less than what he actually ate and if he was expecting to leave with me he should have picked up my beer as well). He tossed in half of that. The friend who set us up tossed in $15, the other friend tossed in $15 and somehow I got the honor of paying nearly $30 for two dollars' worth of Bud Light.

I was left completely aghast by his lack of good manners. I understand the concept of going dutch--I think it's awful, but I get it--but to make your date pay for your meal as well??? That's just awful!

So we're all standing outside and he was like "should we go someplace else and have another drink?". He was clearly clueless about the major faux pas he had just committed and somehow still thought he had a snowball's chance in hell with me. I muttered something about having to get up early and spun around and practically ran away.

The next day, my friend IMs me and asks what I thought about him. "He's boring, ugly and cheap, no wonder he's the one guy on campus I don't know." She got the hint and kept him away from me for the rest of the semester (which obviously wasn't hard because I had already gone 3 years and never seen him).

*I have this thing about sneakers--if you wear sneakers inappropriately I will not date you. It's just one of those quirks of mine.

"Oh CCG, this is so going on Loser Ex."

Friday night the boyfriend and I met up with my sister and her boyfriend and Officer/Gentleman at Cap City. O/G was on his best behavior: he looked good (OMG, he looked great), he wasn't being a princess, he was treating me like a princess--all the makings of a great night. Until late in the night when the TV at the bar changed from the O's to some NBA game (I don't know which one).

Boyfriend loves baseball. I can always get him in a good mood by taking him to baseball (and it's a good thing when he's in a good mood because I usually get stuff like jewelry). He'll probably propose on the scoreboard--actually, he'd better not because I'll say "no" on account of it being a dumb proposal. But I digress...boyfriend loves baseball. Boyfriend HATES basketball. Especially the NBA.

I was proud of him, he didn't throw a fit, he politely asked the waitress to change the TV back to baseball. She disappeared for a few minutes and came back and told him someone else had requested to watch basketball. That's where shit hit the fan. Yes, he was justified in being angry (we had been there throwing back beer for close to four hours at this point), and yes, it was appropriate to ask for our check and announce we were going to find a bar that was showing baseball. And yes, it was very good of him to pick up my and BRG's tab. But it was COMPLETELY out of line to not tip the waitress and then write "next time keep it on baseball" on the credit card slip".

Luckily my sister had cash, which she slipped me (after making the aforementioned declaration) and I slipped the waitress while boyfriend wasn't looking, but I was aghast. I think what made the situation worse was that he was proud of it. Gentlemen, if you're not going to tip your waitress out of principle (and you should ALWAYS tip your waitress, at least ten percent), PLEASE never tell your date. And especially don't tell your date's sister and her boyfriend and expect a pat on the back. That really only makes you an asshole.

Resolutions you should have made.

Sorry for the lapse in posting, the holiday hustle-and-bustle has gotten to the contributors of LoserEx. We will return in the New Year with more bitching and moaning, but until then, here is a joint post of resolutions you should have made all those years ago. Who knows, maybe if you had made them then, we would have been kissing you tomorrow night (but this is highly unlikely).

1. Learn to drive. This applies to a couple of people. Actually, it should be a broader category of attain necessary accoutrements for driving (ie, a driver's license, insurance and a car).
2. Wipe your ass thoroughly after taking a crap. I shouldn't even have to say this one.
3. Learn to speak, read and write English. All of live here, most of you were actually born here. Become familiar with our native tongue.
4. Stop stealing silverware, etc from restaurants. It only drives up prices that our current boyfriends have to pay to take us out. Don't make them look cheap.
5. This is sort of a long the same lines but stop stealing scrubs from the damn emergency room. Ever wonder why there's a so-called healthcare crisis?
6. Stop trying to stick your tongue in every crevice of our bodies. Your tongue up my nose is not incredibly erotic. There's a good reason why I don't date my dog. (This also goes for putting our jewelry in your mouth. If you want to make sure my pearls are real, throw down your plastic for a new string.)
7. Learn to dress yourself. See previous post for a list of unacceptable items. Print it out and take it to the mall with you when you go spend those giftcards you got from Aunt Beverly.
8. Come up with a date that's classier than drinking gin and Sprite through a turkey baster. It's like giving my mouth an illegal abortion and it is not my right to kill my mouth babies.
9. Stop getting so drunk that you wake up to your dad hosing you down in a field when you're covered in chicken and have had your pubes shaved off. But if you think this is going to happen, please don't call us at 4AM to tell us how you got to your current state. We really don't care.
10. Finally learn that when we offer to pay we're not actually offering to pay. This is your cue to throw down your plastic.
11. Lose your religion. Especially if it is borderline cult-like.
12. There will be at least four (but hopefully more) gift-giving occasions this year: our birthday, our anniversary, Valentine's Day and Christmas (these are not in sequential order). Do not give us a crappy gift. When in doubt, the following is acceptable: expensive gourmet chocolates, expensive white gold jewelry, expensive perfume that is not endorsed by a pop tart, an expensive dog with a smushy face and an expensive vacation to someplace exotic. Notice that the words "Bargain", "Gift Card", "Homemade Art" and "Fredericks of Hollywood" do not appear in this list. That's not because we forgot them.
13. Acquire good taste in music. None of you are black, please set your programmed radio stations accordingly. If the song has to be drastically edited for the radio station, it is probably not good music so stop tuning to the station where every other lyric is bleeped out.
14. Get a job and move out of your parents' basement. At 26, this is just pitiful. If you can't support yourself with your current gig, maybe it's time to try a new career. Afterall, you did graduate from "John" Hopkins.
15. Don't call me skanky, fat, dumb, prudish, stuck-up, arrogant, heartless, selfish, difficult, etc. Especially not when you're blowing my cell phone up with drunk text messages at 3AM on a Tuesday. Who does that?
16. Don't google me. That's so sketchy.
17. Stop lying about the other women you're sleeping with, your brain cancer diagnosis, the size of your package, your age, your job, your whereabouts, your personal hygiene habits (look, I shouldn't even have to ask if you brushed your teeth, but I can sure as hell tell if you're lying to me), your plans for the future (including moving my shit to my apartment), or really anything else. Just don't lie. We will find out and when we do we will not be happy.
18. Don't call my dog ugly or misbehaved (don't say it about my sister either).
19. Make your room me-friendly. Take down the 500 paintings of me you created after we broke up, take down the posters of the Playboy Bunnies, get some furniture so I don't have to sit on the damn floor when I come over, quit turning the air conditioner on in February so that I get THOs when I come over, clean your bathroom and kitchen (this is big), stock your pantry with stuff other than beef jerky, doritos and beer, throw away petrified left-overs and buy at least one DVD that does not star Jackie Chan, Angelina Jolie, Jenna Jameson, Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li, or The Governator. As much as we love Ah-nold, his movies leave much to be desired.
20. Don't blame me for your sub-par grades.
21. Try to avoid being thrown in the looney bin this year. Avoid prison too.

We'd love to say we'd rather be kissing you tomorrow night, but well, we wouldn't want to lie to you. We'd honestly rather spend tomorrow playing leapfrog with unicorns. But hey, given a little effort you are all capable of becoming mediocre dates for fat 30-somethings. Aim high, boys.

Happy New Year from us here at LoserEx!!

Throwing down the plastic

Hmmm...more on MB

He really really liked these two singers. I really like these two singers too so when I heard they were playing in Columbus, I got tickets (at $150 a pop). MB assumed that since the concert was a few weeks after his birthday, the tickets were my birthday present to him and made plans to come to Columbus to see this show. The thing is, we weren't dating when I bought the tickets and we sure as hell weren't dating when the concert rolled around. In fact, I was dating another guy and was blissfully happy with him.
But on the day of the concert, MB showed up in Columbus (he drove seven hours to get there). Feeling really bad that I didn't make it incredibly clear to him that he wasn't invited (I thought the fact I was dating another guy was was a sure sign), I cancelled on the girlfriend I was going to go with (the current boyfriend wasn't too keen into these performers and he had some stuff to do anyways) and told MB I would pick him up at five. That was my first mistake, I really should have held my ground.
We're sitting in the concert venue and I'm a little pissed about the whole situation but I'm trying to make the best of it so I ask what's new in his life.
"Well, I don't know how to say this but I'm dating someone."
"Really? How long has this been?"
"Since Mardi Gras. " (Note: Easter had been early this year so Mardi Gras had fallen at the beginning of February. According to MB, I "ripped his heart out" in late January. How bad could it possibly have been if he was DATING EXCLUSIVELY again at the beginning of February?!?!)
"Okay. What's her name? What's she like?"
"Her name is Jan, she's 30 and has about 15 pounds on you."
Niiiice (I am a firm believer that it is downright insulting to date someone uglier/fatter/not as gainfully employed as your ex. I realize this makes life difficult for my exes, but they should consider it a small price to pay to date such greatness).
Needless to say, I was pissed that he made me waste my concert-going experience (not to mention the price I paid for the tickets) so that he didn't have to tell me over the phone that he had a new girlfriend. Furthermore, what the hell was his girlfriend doing, letting him drive seven hours to essentially go on a date with his exgirlfriend? If my boyfriend tried to pull this one over on me I would nail his testicles to the wall. Literally.
So we get through the concert and I'm expecting him to at least buy me dinner. I subtly hint at this in the usual form ("Are you hungry?") and he ignores it. Right before I'm about to drop him off, he's like "can we go through the Wendy's drive-through?" and I'm like sure, thinking french fries sound incredible at this point (with a side of chocolate ice cream and maybe a bottle of beaujolais). Since I'm driving, I get to talk into the little box so I relay his order and then order my french fries. I pull through to the first window, expecting him to hand me money and he gives me exact change for his purchase.
So the bastard ruined the most spectacular concert of my life at my expense and then wouldn't buy my damn dollar-menu french fries. And since he was already my ex, I had no way to recoup my losses.
Cheap asshole.

First complaint

To kick this off, everyone is getting a complaint today, just some are cheeky and dumb, others are downright evil.

Ex 1 (We'll call him 'Boris' due to his thick Eastern European accent)- One time we went to a diner, and he ordered a hamburger with feta cheese. It was so damn gross. He even ate it with his mouth open, commenting that I should try it. Um, no thanks.

Ex 2 (to be known as 'Fruit Fly' due to the fact he plays for the other team now)- Was 18 and still did not have a driver's licence, ergo, I had to drive everywhere -- including taking him home from school everyday (which was so out of the way). When I needed gas, he would neither pay, nor get his butt out of the car and pump the gas.

Ex 3 (I will call him 'Shrek' because he was such an ogre)- Once the ogre I was dating lost his calculator before his econ final, and he pitched a fit to borrow mine. Since I had already taken my stats final, I let him use it. Well, the moron lost it, and promised to buy me a new one, since I had a math course starting in two weeks. Two weeks came and went, and when I asked him to buy my a calculator, he threw a fit at me. Well, idiot, I need it for class, and you shouldn't have lost it. So, I end up buying one, since, unlike nimcapoop, I actually give a hoot about my classes. So, point is: I was out $80 for his: a) feeble-mindedness in losing my calculator and b) his extreme cheapness (and a-holeness, and irresponsibleness, etc.) for not buying me one to replace the one which he lost. If anyone out there actually talks to this doofus, tell him he still owes me $80.

Well, I could go on forever, but I am going to stop there. More tomorrow!