South of the Border

When I first met Fred, he decided one day that he wanted to go on an impromptu road trip to Mexico. After having gotten out of a terrible relationship with Shrek, I was up for any sort of adventure. So I quickly packed a bag and was ready to go. As we were walking to the car, he informed me that he actually was driving some friends to Texas for a party, but we would drop them off then go to Mexico. It seemed a little weird, but whatever.

When the friends (a guy and a girl who were dating) got in the car, it was obvious that they had no idea about the Mexico plans. Fred brought it up, and the girl freaked out. She immediately made it clear that she wanted to be back home in time for their anniversary dinner the following night. She made it very clear that she believed I was the one insisting on the Mexico trip.

Well, despite his friends' objections, Fred insisted we go to Mexico anyway after dropping them off. So we drove late into the night, staying at a cheesy motel right across the border so we could cross over first thing in the morning.

The trip over the Mexico was a unique experience. We mainly just drank and bought the tackiest souvenirs we could find. One thing that really stuck out though was how many people tried to sell us drugs. After turning down some, Fred told me he thought we should buy some illegal substances. I told him no, since I really didn't want to get stopped by border patrol and go to jail over some Mexican weed. He was insistent, but finally accepted that I was not going to allow it to happen.

It was a good thing I didn't give in. Sure enough, we were stopped by border patrol. Fred was asked to pull over and have his car searched. He tried to convince me it was because he had New York tags. This didn't make sense to me then and it still doesn't make sense to me now. We were pulled into separate rooms, questioned and searched. I had no clue what was going on. I didn't know if he had bought some drugs while I was in the bathroom and didn't tell me or what. When the border patrol agent told me the dogs had smelled drugs in the car, I almost passed out.

After two hours in the border patrol station we were finally free to go. As we were driving away, I asked Fred what the whole incident was all about. He chuckled that he had been hot boxing in his car the day before we left. Charming.

We got back to pick up his friends late, and the girl was none too pleased. She made it very clear that she felt I was the one to blame and proceeded to give me the stink eye the entire way back. The two friends ended up getting married and living in the same area as me, so I see them from time to time at alumni events. The guy is very friendly, but the girl still goes out of her way to give me the stink eye.

As truly annoying as this is, Fred's gift of a lifelong enemy still isn't nearly as horrible as the gift of the lifelong memory of my run in with the law. Thanks for the awesome souvenirs!

I Love DC in the Springtime

OK, well, maybe it's not exactly springtime yet, but it's starting to get warm.

For some reason, as soon as it warms up, I am subjected to the ridiculous catcalls of creepy dudes. Yesterday was the first warm day in a long time. During my short time outside, I got an "oh la la," (no, he was not French), an incoherent shout from a moving vehicle, and the creepy guy who insists he's a photographer and wants to hire me as a model. Right. And this was just walking three blocks. I should probably add here that I am not wearing anything even remotely provocative. Seriously. I could be going to lunch with my grandma.

Seriously? What the hell? Staring at my tits and saying "oh la la" is not flattering. It's creepy. Just don't do it. And the photographer thing? That's even more lame. I am not going to be your model. I have a job. And the modeling ship sailed ten years and twenty pounds ago.

But, my real problem is with the drive-by pick up lines, mainly because it is not an uncommon occurrence. I am truly amazed at the number of men who think this is a good idea.

Why the hell do these losers do this? Has this ever worked on anyone? Dummies, no one is impressed by whatever you're yelling out your car window. Even if you do manage to come up with something truly interesting, most women are still going to be skeeved out by the fact you're yelling it out of a car. I'm really not sure what results these men are expecting. I really can't imagine someone being so impressed that they drop everything they're doing and jump in the car with some strange man and ride off into the sunset. Although, according to this month's Cosmo, the most dangerous mistake women make is getting in the car with strange men. So, who knows, maybe there are women this works on.

Obviously, none of these losers are my exes, but they're sure as hell somebody's loserex.

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.

I'm your vehicle baby

It's overly cliched and stereotyped but men love their cars more than they love their women. That's all well and good and I'm perfectly okay with playing a second fiddle to the Mustang (mostly because I probably love that Mustang more than I love my boyfriend--I got to pick the color), since usually it means I get to look positively adorable riding shotgun in such a sweet-ass car.

But what I don't understand is why men can't keep their sweet-ass cars clean.

Mr. Toad is not the fanciest car on the street but he's always relatively clean. He needs to go to the car spa right now but at least when people get in him, they are not overwhelmed by the stench of garbage. If the person in the front seat wants to move the seat back, he or she does not first need to clean out all of the empty water bottles from the space behind the seat. People can sit in the backseat with minimal rearranging (usually it means moving my gym bag to the trunk). I mean, how fucking difficult is it to take the trash out of your car with you when you get out? Chances are good you're going by someplace with a trash can--use it!

Contrary to what these men believe, there's nothing sexy about a sweet car that is completely trashed on the inside.

The worst part is, all of these guys MUST know this because when we first started dating, they were all very diligent about detailing their cars before they came to get me and take me out. But unfortunately it seems with the comfort of sweatpants, morning sex, and Saturday nights on the couch watching UFC (guilty pleasure--what can I say?) comes a messy car. And that sucks.

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!!

Driving Mr. Daisy

Okay, in RGB's first post, she complained about an 18-year old who didn't have his driver's license. I dated a 24-year old who had his license, made more money than I do, paid less in expenses than I do and still was too cheap to buy a car. So we took my car everywhere.
He was also too spastic to learn how to drive stick shift (real men drive stick) so I also had to drive us everywhere.
He had no problem, however, choosing destinations on the other side of the friggin' state. I mean, Valentine's Day in Rochester is nice, but why the hell do I have to drive?
You know how much it sucks to be the sober cab? Imagine doing that for an entire year. And then never question my lack of a tolerance to alcohol again.

I kinda always knew I'd end up your exgirlfriend

So I'm sitting on the couch with laptop (courtesy of the new wireless internet I set up all by myself), attempting to do some work for my job, but I also have Love Actually in the DVD player, so I'm not really doing much work (as is probably evidenced by the fact I am posting to my little sister's blog about horrendous ex-boyfriends, of which I have plenty).
Before I launch into my dickhead/dickless/whiskeydick-affected menagerie of ex-boyfriends, I feel obligated to say that I am not a ball-busting-bull-dyke-man-hater. Nothing at all like that. I really am a hopeless romantic. I can find something to love in just about everyone (and most of the time I do). The men I discuss here obviously did something repulsive to appear here. Otherwise, we'd be happily married with like a billion children (well, maybe not).
Now for their transgressions: I don't want to list this in chronological order, mostly because many of my exes aren't all that interesting (at least at this point) and I don't have all night. So here are the highlights:

Door #1: "Mr. Minnesota"

The first thing that turned me off about Mr. Minnesota is that he is an idiot but he is completely ignorant of his ignorance. He is also an authority on everything. Case in point: I was going on a trip to visit my sister in New Orleans last Easter. Mr. Minnesota knew about this and sends me an e-mail telling me about the sights I should see in New Orleans. An excerpt from his e-mail: "you should go to this cafe in the French Quarter where they have coffee with chickory and world-famous powdered donuts." BEIGNETS, DUMBASS!
Despite this, I agreed to go on a date with Mr. Minnesota. The night before, I had been out drinking with my friends and I spent all day throwing up, but Mr. Minnesota wouldn't let me cancel because he had already bought tickets for a show. So he picks me up and brings me two bottles of wine and a dozen roses (can you say overkill). He proceeds to take me to one of the priciest restaurants in Minneapolis and then to the play (Romeo and Juliet, because that's not a cliche) where I sit in a cold, dark theater watching bad actors butcher Shakespeare, completely nauseated because he must have bathed in Polo Sport (gag--I love Ralph Lauren, I hate Polo Sport). He brings me home at the end of the night and asks if he can walk me upstairs. Until this point, I have never told a guy he couldn't walk me to my door (I usually just give them blueballs at the door). I look him in the eye and say "um, no."
He pulls out a piece of paper, on which he has written me a poem and tells me to "read it later". I can't make this stuff up. I sprung from the car and ran inside.
Congrats, Jackass, you took me on the worst date of my life.

Door #2: "AB"

Never ever date the guy you drunkenly suck face with at a Jimmy Buffett concert. Chances are good he only seems like a catch because you are faced.
AB and I dated very casually in the summer of 2003 while I was maintaining another blog. One night, we went out in College Park and I got completely wasted. AB tried to get me to fool around with him but I was really turned off by him.
A few days later, I wrote in blog about the incident (it was actually a lot more tactful than I'm making it sound). I concluded that even though there was nothing wrong with him, I was just not attracted to him at all and didn't want to date him. I also concluded that the best way to not date him was to two-week him. (Editor's note: "two-weeking" is the theory that if you don't communicate with someone for two weeks, you are no longer dating that person. It only works for people who are casually dating--obviously if you are serious you need to have a sit-down with your significant other when you want to dump his ass). I thought it would be a good idea to write all of this down in my blog and then I set about avoiding his calls.
Until he stopped calling my cell phone and stated calling my parents' house (how the hell did he get that number??). When I answered, he chewed my ass for a good hour. Apparently, he didn't think it was the least bit sketchy to GOOGLE SEARCH me and he came across the blog and read all about my evil little plot (I'm subsequently removed all references to myself from that site, making it damn near impossible to find it if you don't know what you're looking for).
How much sketchier can one get? But the sketchiest guy ever is behind

Door #3: "Bad Driving Man"

I was completely crazy about the bad driving man. Which is why I was heartbroken when he left for spring break, said "I'll call you when my plane lands, babe", and I never heard from him. Despite my calls and e-mails, I didn't hear a word from him until the last day of break when he called from the Columbus airport, wondering if I could pick his ass up and drive it back to college.
When I questioned his whereabouts, he told me he had gone to the ER for a headache and they found a spot on the MRI film and the doctors thought it was cancer so he and his (urologist) father flew from Chicagoland to LA to spend a week getting tested at the John Wayne Cancer Institute for brain cancer that turned out to be a speck of dust on the imaging equipment.
Now if you thought you had brain cancer, wouldn't you call your girlfriend of nine months and tell her? Furthermore, if lived in Chicago and thought you had brain cancer, wouldn't you stay in Chicago and go to one of their top hospitals? Or at least take a ONE HOUR plane ride to MAYO CLINIC (the best cancer hospital in the world) to have it looked at instead of flying all the way to a research facility?? But what do I know.
A few months later, after totalling my mother's convertible, he pulled the same stunt and I never heard from him again. No big loss there.